CHILD  S 

AND 

CHILD  TRA 


MMNMMMMtMNM 


WILLIAM  BYRON  FORB1 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

HEC  S     h£ 

JAN  3      wr       ^21  1*"; 


1OOH0S  IVWtfON  31VXS 
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CHILD  STUDY   AND 
CHILD  TRAINING 


BY 

WILLIAM  BYRON  FORBUSH 

President  of  the  American  Institute  of  Child  Life 
Author  of  "The  Boy  Problem,"  "The  Life  of  Jesus,"  etc 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1915 

-374)77' 
JAN  fgjjr 


Copyright,  1915 
By  Charles  Scribner's   Sons 


Ha 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

Child  Study  Domesticated    .... 

1 

II. 

Why  Parents  and  Homes  are  Needed 

11 

III. 

What  Complete  Parenthood  Involves     . 

19. 

IV. 

The  Main  Periods  of  Childhood 

28 

V. 

The  Principal  Types  of  Children     . 

34 

VI. 

What  the  Body  Has  to  Do  with  Character 

40 

VII. 

Forces  that  Make  a  Man    .... 

47 

VIII. 

Training  Children  to  Observe  and  Dis- 

criminate          

55 

IX. 

Habit-Forming 

61 

X. 

The  Problems  of  Obedience 

68 

XI. 

Sex  Instruction  and  Discipline 

75 

XII. 

The  Imagination 

85 

XIII. 

Some  Problems  of  the  Instincts 

93 

XIV. 

Dealing  with  the  Emotions 

99 

XV. 

Interest       

108 

XVI. 

Will  Training   .... 

116 

XVII. 

Play 

123 

XVIII. 

Work 

131 

XIX. 

The  Story 

137 

XX. 

Reading 

u:> 

in 


IV 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXI.  How  to  Teach  a  Child  to  Pray        .        .     152 

XXII.  The  Bible  and  the  Child     ....     158 

XXIII.  Sunday 166 

XXIV.  Parents'   Problems  Connected  with  the 

Day  School 172 

XXV.  Home  and  School 183 

XXVI.  Certain  Common  Faults  of  Children      .     190 

XXVII.  The  Home  Training  of  School  Children     199 

XXVIII.  Companionship    .       . 

XXIX.  Amusements  and  Social  Life 

XXX.  Money 

XXXI.  When    the     Children     Become 

People" 

XXXII.  Vocational  Opportunities 

XXXIII.  Vocational  Education 

XXXIV.  Vocational  Guidance 
XXXV.  The  Church  and  Her  Children 

XXXVI.  The  Goal:  Service  for  the  Kingdom 


"Young 


208 
214 
219 

228 
235 
242 
249 
258 
266 


LABORATORY  EXPERIMENTS: 

I.     Instances   of    Misunderstanding    and   of 

Being  Misunderstood         ....  279 

II.     The  Hidden  Longings  of  Childhood         .  281 

III.  The  Interests  of  an  Individual  Child    .  282 

IV.  School  and  the  Interests  of  Life    .        .  282 
V.     Around  the  Clock  with  a  Child  at  Play  284 


CONTENTS 

LABORATORY  EXPERIMENTS  —  Continued 

VI.  A  Child's  Reading   .... 

VII.  Practical  Story-Telling 

VIII.  Children's  Ideas  of  Prayer 

IX.  Children's  Interest  in  the  Bible 

X.  Persons  Who  Have  Influenced  Me 

XI.  Crises  in  a  Child's  Life 

XII.  Helping  Children  in  Home  Study 


XIII.     Home  Discipline  as  Suggested  in  the  Bible     301 


XIV.  Religion  in  the  Home 

XV.  The  Traces  of  the  Gang 

XVI.  The  Vacation  Problem 

XVII.  A  Survey  of  a  Single  School 


XVIII.     The  Social  Situation  in  Our  High  School    309 


XIX.     The  Street  Life  of  Boys 

XX.     What  was  Going  on  in  Our  Town  Last 
Week  for  Young  People? 


XXI.     The  Motion-Picture  Shows  in  Our  Town    312 


XXII.  Obscene  Literature        .... 

XXIII.  The  Social  Evil       .        .        . 

XXIV.  The  Saloon  and  Young  People  . 
XXV.  Our  Playgrounds 

XXVI.  The  Public  Library  and  the  Children 

XXVII.  The    Influence    of    Civic    Beauty    upon 

Young  People 


PAGE 

286 
287 
292 
293 
295 
297 
298 


302 
303 
305 
306 


310 


312 


314 
314 
315 
316 
317 

318 


INTRODUCTION 

The  purpose  of  this  course  of  study  is  to  furnish  a  basis 
of  work  for  classes  interested  in  child  study. 

The  subject  of  human  development  from  infancy  to 
maturity  is  being  recognized  in  colleges  and  among  in- 
telligent people  elsewhere  as  one  of  the  very  greatest 
importance.  It  is  the  crown  of  biology  and  one  of  the 
bases  of  ethics.  With  such  study  is  naturally  associated 
investigation  into  those  changes  in  human  development 
which  may  be  wrought  by  environment  and  training. 
These  are  of  the  deepest  interest  to  all  who  care  for  the 
physical,  mental,  social  and  moral  betterment  of  mankind. 

Child  study  and  child  training  are,  therefore,  two 
closely  related  subjects  of  study. 

The  methods  of  study  are  these.  The  text  gives  a  few 
of  the  commonly  accepted  facts,  with  page  references  to 
authorities  for  further  reading.  Interchange  of  experience 
and  observation  in  the  class  will  add  to  the  knowledge  of 
all.  The  "  laboratory  "  method  of  directed  observation 
is  particularly  emphasized  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
course,  when  the  student  has  become  prepared  to  do  such 
work  wisely. 

The  course  is  directed  definitely  toward  a  wiser  parent- 
hood. Young  people  today  are  coming  to  realize  that 
they  are  not  seriously  facing  the  chief  probability  of  ma- 
ture life  unless  they  do  so  with  intelligence.  Those  who 
are  already  parents  know  that  they  need  all  the  wisdom 
that  is  available.  Not  only  students  in  normal  schools, 
but  those  outside  such  institutions  who  intend  to  be  teach- 
ers in  secular  or  religious  schools  are  demanding  instruc- 
tion in  child  study  and  child  training. 


vu 


Child  Study  and  Child  Training 

CHAPTER   I 

CHILD   STUDY   DOMESTICATED 

What  is  a  Child? 

A  very  natural  and  common  answer  to  this  question  is, 
A  little  adult.  It  is  an  easy  supposition  that  a  child  is 
like  a  grown-up  human  being  except  that  he  is  less.  He 
is  evidently  smaller  in  body,  he  knows  less,  he  can  do  less. 
But  we  shall  discover  in  this  course  that  the  child  is  not 
so  much  less  as  he  is  different.  The  body  of  a  little  child, 
for  example,  is  not  only  smaller  than  that  of  an  adult,  but 
its  proportions  are  very  different.  He  not  only  knows 
less,  but  he  thinks  differently.  Tracy  compares  a  child's 
intellect  to  that  of  an  adult  by  comparing  a  pane  of  glass 
to  a  prism.  He  has  psychical  as  well  as  physical  traits 
that  are  so  different  from  those  that  he  will  possess  when 
mature  that  they  resemble  those  possessed  by  the  lower 
animals.  "  Intellectually  and  morally,"  as  Bolton  points 
out,  "  he  lives  in  a  realm  long  ago  passed  over  by  his 
parents  and  teachers,"  and  not  only  so,  but  they,  in 
turn,  have  so  completely  moulted  their  childish  traits 
that  they  would  not  recognize  themselves  as  they  were  if 
an  exact  reproduction  of  their  own  child  life  could  be 
furnished  them. 

It  is  this  theory  that  the  child  is  simply  a  small  adult, 
coupled  with  the  inability  of  adults  to  recollect,  that  ex- 
plains many  established  misunderstandings  of  children. 
This  it  was  that  suggested  the  theological  definition  of  a 
child  as  "  a  little  sinner."  This  it  is  that  explains  the 
conduct  of  an  ignorant  parent  who  thumps  a  child  into 
docility,  on  the  ground  that  he  knows  as  much  as  the 
parent  does,  but  is  merely  obstinate, 

1 


2  CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

On  the  other  hand,  a  child  has  been  defined  as  "a 
member  of  another  race  who  will  sometime  become  a 
member  of  ours."  This  is  an  error  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection. If  a  child  is  not  wholly  a  manikin,  neither  is 
he  wholly  an  animal.  He  will,  it  is  true,  experience  some 
very  remarkable  changes  before  he  becomes  an  adult, 
but  not  all  of  these  changes  are  from  the  animal  to  the 
human.  A  child  of  six,  for  instance,  has  just  as  quick 
insight  as  a  man.  The  memory  powers  of  eight  will 
never  be  more  extraordinary. 

One  other  fact  must  be  mentioned  in  beginning  the 
investigation  which  we  are  about  to  make  concerning 
child  nature.  We  speak  of  "  the  original  nature  "  of  a 
child,  by  which  we  mean  certain  specific  reactions  which 
the  child  would  make  to  specific  situations,  certain  more 
general  tendencies,  and  certain  complex  groupings  of 
these  tendencies  and  reactions.  These  apparently  con- 
stitute the  original  nature  of  the  child,  but  in  the  absence 
of  a  human  environment  no  individual  child  would  be- 
come human  as  distinguished  from  "  animal."  An  indi- 
vidual who  has  always  lived  by  himself  is  imbecile. 
Since  we  cannot  think  of  the  intelligent  child  apart  from 
his  environment,  it  is  evident  that  we  cannot  understand 
the  so-called  "  original  nature  "  or  the  disposition  of  the 
child  apart  from  what  children  do  in  particular  environ- 
ments. "  The  great  illusion  of  child  study,"  says  Coe, 
"  is  that  inside  Billy  and  Sally  there  is  the  child,  a  thing 
in  itself  which,  if  we  could  once  get  at  it,  would  explain 
Billy  and  Sally.  There  prevails  a  tendency  to  attribute 
to  original  child  nature  the  effects  of  the  child's  experience 
in  a  particular  environment."  For  example,  we  have 
gotten  the  impression  that  the  nervousness  of  some  ado- 
lescents, under  our  high-pressure  life,  is  a  universal  diffi- 
culty of  adolescence  as  such.  We  shall  not  get  a  correct 
understanding  of  nervousness  on  the  part  of  the  adoles- 
cent until  we  learn  something  about  the  environment 
which  stimulates  it.  We  must  go  even  further  and  recog- 
nize that  a  child  not  only  cannot  be  intelligent  without 
an  environment,  but  that  it  cannot  be  good  without  an 


CHILD   STUDY   DOMESTICATED  3 

environment.  His  religion  is  not  an  individual  matter. 
We  are  dealing  with  a  religion  of  social  idealism.  Child 
nature,  then,  is  to  be  defined  not  by  what  we  can  discover 
about  a  child  momentarily,  separate  from  the  world 
around  him,  but  by  the  social  reactions  which  children 
freely  make  in  their  environment.  Child  study,  there- 
fore, involves  at  least  some  little  study  of  society. 

We  are  evidently  not  prepared  at  this  stage  of  our 
study  to  define  childhood.  Any  definition  now  would  be 
deductive  and  tentative.  But  we  have  been  warned  by 
our  ignorance  to  consider  the  next  point: 

The  Importance  of  Child  Study 
When  men  believed  that  children  were  small  adults 
the  interest  of  educators  was  in  perfecting  the  art  of  im- 
parting knowledge  rather  than  in  understanding,  nour- 
ishing or  unfolding  the  child.  We  see  already  that  we 
shall  be  very  clumsy  in  imparting  any  subject  of  knowl- 
edge, if  we  do  not  understand  how  a  child  apprehends  it. 
In  the  old  legend  of  the  missionary  society  in  England 
that  "  imparted  "  warming  pans  to  the  Bermudas  we 
are  told  not  only  that  the  natives  had  no  use  for  them  for 
their  designed  purpose,  but  that  they  did  utilize  them  for 
their  own  purpose — namely,  as  dippers  for  cane  sugar. 
So  when  an  adult  "  imparts  "  what  is  to  him  knowledge 
for  a  given  purpose  to  a  child  whom  he  does  not  under- 
stand the  child  may  either  not  receive  it  at  all  or  he  may 
quite  misuse  it.  Further,  it  is  quite  as  likely  to  turn  out 
that  what  we  teach  with  the  greatest  difficulty  at  one  age 
may  be  so  well  adapted  to  a  later  or  an  earlier  stage  of 
development  that  it  would  at  its  proper  time  be  appre- 
hended with  the  greatest  ease.  For  example,  we  have 
learned  through  child  study  that  by  postponing  mathe- 
matics for  several  years  beyond  our  earlier  custom  a 
child  will  do  two  or  three  years'  work  in  the  subject  in 
one,  while  to  postpone  a  speaking  acquaintance  with 
foreign  languages  immensely  increases  the  difficulty  in 
mastering  them.  We  may  expect  to  learn  that  moral 
training  has  also  its  own  laws  and  seasons. 


4  CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

The  name  "  Child  Study  "  need  not  be  alarming.  It  is 
often  associated,  it  is  true,  with  psycho-physiological 
laboratories,  with  pretentious  questionnaires  and  with 
delicate  scientific  experiments.  But  some  of  the  most 
valuable  studies  of  children  have  been  made  by  ordinary 
parents  and  teachers.  Airs.  W.  S.  Hall's  "  One  Hun- 
dred Days  in  a  Baby's  Life  "  was  little  more  than  a  faith- 
ful diary  kept  by  a  mother  of  all  the  activities  of  her  child 
during  his  first  three  months.  Dr.  James  Sully's  "  Studies 
in  Childhood  "  is  a  volume  of  considerable  scientific  value, 
but  the  informal  "  Extracts  from  a  Father's  Diary  "  in 
the  appendix,  of  fully  as  much  interest,  involve  no 
records  that  might  not  have  been  kept  by  any  alert 
father.  Du  Bois'  "  Fireside  Child  Study  "  has  flashes  of 
keenest    insight. 

There  are  really  four  methods  of  child  study,  and  they 
are  all  accessible  to  the  earnest  student. 

One  of  them,  suggested  above,  is 

Observation 
There  are  a  number  of  great  advantages  in  fireside  child 
study.  Not  only  is  the  child  always  natural,  because  he 
is  unconscious  that  he  is  being  specially  observed,  but 
the  opportunity  for  patient,  consecutive,  comparative 
investigation  is  unparalleled.  It  is  bound  to  have  an 
intimacy  and  a  human  quality  that  are  often  lacking  in 
more  ambitious  but  distant  efforts.  The  fact  that  the 
observer  is  inexperienced  need  not  defeat  him  if  he  is 
instructed  as  to  certain  precautions  which  he  should  take 
in  his  study.  For  instance,  his  sympathy  is  not  a  barrier 
to  knowledge,  but  rather  a  help  thereto,  if  it  does  not  de- 
generate into  sentimentality.  Candor  of  observation  and 
accuracy  of  record  are,  of  course,  presupposed.  But  per- 
haps the  most  important  single  requirement  is  a  definite 
understanding  as  to  what  is  being  sought.  Miscellaneous 
entries,  such  as  are  provided  for  in  the  usual  "  Baby's 
Book, ' '  are  hardly  novel  or  extensive  enough  to  yield  any- 
thing more  than  souvenirs  for  pleasant  review  by  the 
child  when  he  is  old  enough  to  read  them.     Such  an 


CHILD   STUDY   DOMESTICATED  5 

inquiry  as  the  one  proposed  in  the  later  part  of  this  course, 
"Around  the  Clock  with  a  Child  at  Play,"  would 
certainly  be  of  interest  even  to  special  students,  if  the 
child's  sex  and  exact  age  were  noted,  and  the  essential 
conditions,  and  if  the  observations  were  measurably  com- 
plete. Two  studies  in  this  very  field,  one  recorded  by 
Major  and  the  other  by  Tracy,  have  already  been  of 
considerable  value  in  letting  us  know  at  about  what  age 
veritable  imaginative  play  begins  in  a  child's  life.  There 
is  need  for  many  more  such  records  in  this  field  by  a 
number  of  observers  and  at  a  greater  number  of  ages  than 
those  which  have  so  far  been  studied.  The  whole  realm 
of  life  between  the  years  of  eight  and  twelve,  with  its 
interests  of  play,  experiment  and  work,  its  ideas  and 
ideals  and  its  ruling  motives,  is  largely  an  untilled  field. 
Infancy  and  adolescence  have  occupied  attention  to  such 
a  degree  that  these  important  years  have  remained  com- 
paratively unstudied.  They  are  years  during  which  we 
very  much  need  testimony,  and  they  are  years,  too,  when 
the  child,  still  much  of  his  time  in  and  about  the  home, 
may  be  easily  and  thoughtfully  observed.  At  every  age, 
and  especially  during  adolescence,  we  are  in  want  of 
wisdom  as  to  what  is  going  on  in  the  lives  of  young  people 
of  the  so-called  choleric  temperament.  We  find  that 
those  of  the  sanguine  and  sentimental  types  are  fond  of 
self-expression,  and  we  suspect  that  we  have  tried  to 
interpret  the  whole  of  childhood  by  their  partial  witness. 

These  illustrations  indicate  just  a  few  places  where  the 
home  student  would  not  be  merely  tolerated  but  heartily 
welcomed  by  the  professional  student  of  childhood. 

Observations  by  a  group  of  students  focussed  upon  a 
single  topic  of  inquiry  are  also  of  considerable  value. 
Their  value  of  course  depends  upon  how  representative 
they  are  and  how  abundant  upon  any  one  topic  or  period. 
But  any  group  of  persons  using  this  textbook  might  easily 
concentrate  its  observations  for  a  time  upon  an  age  or  a 
problem  that  would  yield  comparative  results.  Such  a 
group  could,  with  the  co-operation  of  a  teacher,  make  a 
united  study  of  the  interests  in  a  single  public  schoolroom. 


6  CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

They  could  get  a  kind  of  moral  census  of  the  attitude  of 
boys  and  of  girls  of  the  same  grade  of  development  in  the 
community  upon  some  given  matter. 

Observations  that  have  already  been  made  are  on  rec- 
ord, and  are  useful  to  confirm  or  compare  with  original 
studies  that  may  be  made  by  an  individual  or  a  group. 
It  is  best  not  to  refer  to  such  records  until  one's  own 
study  is  well  under  way,  and  then  to  be  certain  of  accuracy 
of  method  rather  than  of  the  character  of  the  result,  for 
any  study  to  be  worth  while  should  be  independent  and 
uninfluenced  by  supposed  probabilities.  Kirkpatrick's 
"The  Individual  in  the  Making"  contains  many  such  records 
upon  the  very  subjects  likely  to  be  interesting  to  the 
beginning  student.  Earl  Barnes'  "  Studies  in  Education  " 
would  be  suggestive  in  helping  one  to  undertake  study 
in  fields  parallel  to  but  not  identical  with  one's  own. 

A  second  method  of  study  is  by 

Reminiscence 

Memory  is,  of  course,  not  so  accurate  as  present  ob- 
servation, but  it  is  a  help  in  confirming  what  one  sees, 
and  it  is  perhaps  the  most  useful  of  all  methods  for  getting 
the  large  view  of  things.  The  father  who  has  not  for- 
gotten what  he  was  like  when  he  was  a  boy  is  most  ad- 
mirably fitted  to  interpret  the  on-coming  traits  in  his 
own  son.  The  mother  who  has  retained  the  diary  of  her 
girlhood  has  an  unexpected  use  for  it  when  she  brings  up 
her  daughter.  It  is  most  wholesome  for  the  parent  who  is 
certain  that  his  child  is  an  unexampled  problem  to  visit 
his  own  father  or  mother  and  be  assured  that  he  himself 
exemplified  as  a  boy  the  most  undesirable  traits  now 
noticeable  in  his  child. 

The  conjunct  memory  of  a  group  is  even  more  service- 
able. If  the  subject  of  discussion  in  a  group  be,  for 
example,  the  social  amusements  of  the  young,  what  they 
all  remember  of  their  youthful  desires,  of  the  attitudes 
assumed  by  their  own  parents,  of  the  position  of  the 
church,    of    the    resources   of   a   generation  ago,    would 


CHILD   STUDY  DOMESTICATED  7 

make  a  splendid  background  for  realizing  the  present-day 
situation. 

The  endeavor  to  study  childhood  by  means  of  reminis- 
cence of  states  of  mind  or  of  conduct,  by  collecting  large 
masses  of  memory-records  through  questionnaires,  was 
carried  to  great  lengths  some  years  ago  at  Clark  University 
and  elsewhere.  The  value  of  the  results  of  this  census 
method  must  evidently  depend  upon  the  ability  of  the 
questioner  so  to  shape  his  questions  and  to  analyze  his 
answers  as  not  to  communicate  his  own  predilections  to 
the  study,  upon  both  the  temperament,  the  candor  and 
the  intelligence  of  the  answerers,  and  upon  certain  limita- 
tions of  the  method  itself  as  a  way  of  getting  at  facts. 

Memories  that  have  made  their  record  in  literature  give 
confirmatory  aid.  Old  diaries  and  bundles  of  old  letters, 
the  printed  diaries  of  people  of  the  past,  the  autobiogra- 
phies of  such  persons  as  Marie  Bashkirtseff,  Leo  Tolstoi 
and  Richard  Jefferies,  and  the  half-veiled  memories  in 
such  fiction  as  "  David  Copperfield, "  "  Little  Women  " 
and  "  The  One  I  Knew  the  Best  of  All  "  are  all  useful. 
Many  a  parent  has  happened  in  such  literature  upon  the 
explanation  of  a  phenomenon  in  his  child's  life  that  other- 
wise would  not  have  been  made  plain  to  him. 

A  third  method,  treacherous  but  tempting,  is  that  of 
literary  rather  than  scholastic  interpretation. 

Literary  Interpretation 
The  poets  and  the  artists  have  blessed  us  here.  From 
them  we  have  some  of  the  most  exquisite  and  suggestive 
interpretations  of  child  life.  Among  the  best  in  poetry 
are  those  of  Stevenson,  Riley,  Field  and  Whittier;  among 
those  in  story  are  the  ones  by  Kenneth  Grahame,  William 
Canton,  Myra  Kelly,  Booth  Tarkington  and  James 
Hopper;  in  imaginative  prose  we  have  those  of  Walter 
Pater  and  Mrs.  Alice  Meynell;  in  art  there  are  Israels, 
de  Hooch,  Le  Brun,  Elizabeth  Shippen  Green  and  Jessie 
Willcox  Smith.  Many  of  us  have  children  whose  char- 
acters, wistful,  dumbly  affectionate,  solitary  or  exuberant, 
have  already  been  painted  to  the  life  in  literature.     Cer- 


8  CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

tainly  no  one  could  fail  to  be  more  gentle  with  a  lad  if 
his  prototype  had  been  recognized  in  "  The  Child  in  the 
House."  Real  boys  have  had  an  easier  time  everywhere 
since  "  Penrod  "  was  published. 

Worthy  to  be  classed  with  the  interpretations  in  litera- 
ture is  the  vision  vouchsafed  to  parental  love.  It  is  poetic, 
for  it  sees  the  deeper  meanings  of  the  commonplace  and 
ugly ;  it  is  prophetic,  for  it  believes  in  the  unfolded  blossom 
when  it  sees  only  the  enfolded  bud. 

Above,  such  interpretation  was  said  to  be  treacherous. 
Pure  insight  is  not  treacherous,  only  the  clouded  vision. 
"If  thine  eye  be  single  it  shall  be  full  of  light."  It  helps 
the  power  of  literary  interpretation  if  it  be  absolutely 
true  to  memory  and  experience.  Mark  Twain's  "  Tom 
Sawyer  "  is  marred  by  its  dime-novel  sensationalism  of 
adventure.  Ik  Marvel's  "  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  "  is 
defective  because  of  its  adult  sentimentality  imputed  to 
wholesome  child  life.  In  the  home,  too,  an  indolent  will- 
ingness to  see  only  the  pleasant  is  a  different  thing  from 
an  active  trust  in  the  inherent  tendency  of  a  boy  to  good. 
Family  pride,  unaided  by  an  honest  desire  to  know,  is 
blindness  itself.  The  best  mother  is  the  one  who  can  be 
grieved  but  cannot  be  fooled. 

Some  typical  literary  interpretations  are  these:  Stevenson:  "A  Child's 
Garden  of  Verse."  Riley:  " Afterwhiles."  Field:  "With  Trumpet  and 
Drum."  Whittier:  "Snow  Bound."  Grahame:  "Dream  Days."  Can- 
ton: "  The  Invisible  Playmate,"  and  "  W.  V.,  Her  Book."  Kelly:  "  Little 
Citizens."  Tarkington:  "Penrod."  Hopper:  "  A  Thief  in  the  Night, 
and  Other  Stories."  Pater:  "The  Child  in  the  House."  Meynell:  "The 
Children."     Hunt:    "Una  Mary." 

We  still  have  left  what  we  call 

Scholarly  Study 

All  child  study  should  be  scientific  as  far  as  it  goes,  but 
scholars  have  the  privilege  of  collating  observations,  of 
sifting  reminiscences,  of  analyzing  literary  interpretations, 
and  further  of  applying  scientific  methods  and  engaging 
in  long-continued  and  far-reaching  investigations  that  are 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  amateur.  Baldwin,  for  example, 
has  devised  ingenious  tests  to  measure  the  distance  and 


CHILD   STUDY   DOMESTICATED  9 

color  perception  of  infants,  Binet-Simon  and  others  have 
worked  out  methods  of  measuring  what  is  called  psycho- 
logical as  distinct  from  physiological  age,  and  Thomson 
has  told  the  world  more  of  the  limits  of  heredity.  Child 
study  became  an  educational  fad  so  soon  that  hasty  sum- 
maries and  statements  were  put  forth  in  fields  where 
thorough  research  has  revised  supposed  facts  and  upset 
early  inferences.  In  no  department  of  study  are  scientific 
methods  more  needed,  and  of  these  especially  the  open 
mind,  the  analytic  comparison  and  the  suspended  judg- 
ment. 

What  is  here  said  should  encourage  the  beginning  stu- 
dent in  his  work.  Many  things  in  life  and  in  literature 
have  already  been  equipping  us  for  our  task.  Material 
for  observation  and  experiment  is  more  abundant  than  in 
almost  any  other  line  of  scientific  research.  What  we 
ourselves,  together  or  separately,  see  and  remember  about 
children  is  child  study,  and  may  be  made  child  study  of 
serious  value.  The  student  who  throughout  this  course 
will  retain  at  least  one  habit,  that  of  observing  freshly,  is 
bound  to  do  good  work.  No  task  in  child  study  has  yet 
been  so  thoroughly  or  accurately  done  that  something  new 
may  not  be  learned.  And  in  the  case  of  the  individual 
child  he  is  so  seldom  in  last  month's  state  of  mind  that  he 
may  ever  be  regarded  as  a  fresh  subject  of  investigation. 
The  modern  student  of  this  fascinating  theme  is  one  of  a 
company  of  eager  and  expectant  investigators.  The  re- 
ward of  investigation  may  be  addition  to  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge ;  it  is  sure  to  be  an  added  personal  knowledge  of 
human  nature  in  its  sweetest  and  most  impressible  years 
and  an  added  power  to  help  work  desirable  changes  in 
plastic  human  material. 

Reading  References 
An  excellent  outline  of  child  development,  with  suggestions  for  methods 
of  observation,  will  be  found  in  Baldwin:  "  Story  of  the  Mind,"  IV. 
The  true  spirit  of  the  student  of  childhood  is  suggested  in  the  introduction 
of  Sully:  "  Studies  of  Childhood."  Methods  of  observation  are  carefully 
outlined  in  Kirkpatrick:  "  Fundamentals  of  Child  Studv,"  XVIII;  also  in 
a  chapter  of  Drummond's  outline  on  child  study:  "  How  to  Study  a 
Baby."     A  classical  chapter  upon  the  use  of  sympathetic  observation  in'lhe 


10         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

training  of  children  is  in  Dubois:  "  Beckonings  from  Little  Hands,"  under 
the  title  "  The  Fire  Builders."  A  charming  approach  to  childhood  through 
literature  is  in  the  first  two  chapters  of  Mrs.  Meynell's  "  The  Children," 
under  the  title  "  Fellow  Travelers  with  a  Bird."  An  excellent  way  to 
note  the  contrast  of  the  sentimental  and  the  realistic  attitude  would  be  to 
read  at  random  any  chapter  in  William  Canton's  "  W.  V.,  Her  Book,"  and 
Booth  Tarkington's  "  Penrod." 


CHAPTER  II 

WHY  PARENTS  AND  HOMES  ARE   NEEDED 

The  Meaning  of  Infancy 

It  seems  strange  that  human  children,  the  only  infant 
beings  capable  of  being  really  educated  and  of  attaining 
such  an  individuality  that  they  are  the  sole  living  creatures 
whose  actions  are  not  predictable,  should  nevertheless  be 
born  the  most  helpless  of  all  creatures.  A  baby  cannot 
seek  food,  cannot  feed  himself,  does  not  know  food  from 
poison,  cannot  keep  clean,  cannot  change  his  position  in 
any  voluntary  direction,  and  would  certainly  perish  if, 
from  the  start,  he  were  not  fed,  cleansed  and  exercised  by 
other  hands. 

The  lengthening  of  infancy  in  human  children  is  im- 
portant in  at  least  three  ways:  First,  these  years  when  the 
brain  is  plastic  and  the  child  is  meeting  and  mastering  a 
multitude  of  preliminary  experiences  give  the  opportunity 
for  the  child  to  develop  individuality.  Animals  have 
little,  if  any,  individuality.  Given  the  circumstances  and 
the  naturalist  can  predict  what  the  animal  will  do  under 
the  influence  of  those  circumstances.  The  animal  has 
had  no  plastic  period.  He  has  entered  at  once  upon  his 
race  heritage  and  does  just  what  his  instincts  impel  him 
to  do.  But  the  child  has  a  long  period  of  plasticity,  dur- 
ing which  he  reacts  to  his  environment  as  well  as  to  his 
race  heritage,  and  as  his  environment  is  different  from 
that  of  any  other  child  he  develops  a  different  nature  from 
any  other  child.  His  mind  is  not  merely  passive  either; 
it  is  alert,  eager  and  accretive.  Out  of  pretty  much  the 
same  environment  which  another  child  has  he  will  shape 
something  different,  for  he  is  already  potentially  indi- 
vidual. 

Second,  during  his  lengthened  and  protected  infancy 
his  present  environment  prepares  him  for  adjustment  to 

U 


12         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

a  larger  environment  which  is  to  come.  In  play,  for 
example,  he  meets  many  of  the  situations  and  utilizes 
most  of  the  faculties  which  he  will  meet  and  use  in  his 
work,  when  he  is  mature.  So  infancy  is  the  "  school  of 
the  soldier  "  which  gives  the  hardihood,  practice  and 
initiative  needed  in  life's  more  earnest  conflicts.  Marvel- 
lous as  are  the  instinctive  adaptations  in  the  animal  world, 
they  are  not  measurably  greater  when  the  animal  is  large 
than  when  he  is  small,  and  he  has  no  power  of  making  any 
adaptations  that  are  not  instinctive.  Kinnaman's  mon- 
keys in  the  Clark  University  laboratory  learned  by  practice 
the  manipulation  of  door-latches  which  for  a  moment 
baffled  G.  Stanley  Hall,  but  they  had  soon  reached  their 
limit,  while  President  Hall  not  only  traversed  in  a  few 
minutes  a  gamut  of  skill  as  great  as  that  which  they 
had  acquired  in  several  days,  but  was  able  to  do  what 
none  of  the  monkeys  could  do, — invent  new  combinations. 
Then  he  still  had  initiative  left  for  further  solutions  and 
invention,  if  desired. 

Third,  prolonged  human  infancy  gives  the  opportunity 
not  only  for  meeting  new  environments  with  abundant 
powers  of  adjustment,  but  for  extra-instinctive  (i.e., 
educated)  methods  of  dealing  with  further  experience. 
President  Hall  would  probably  explain  his  rather  remark- 
able agility  with  the  door-latches  as  the  result  of  his  boy- 
hood experiences  on  a  Berkshire  farm,  where  he  had,  as 
he  has  recorded  in  an  interesting  paper,  some  elementary 
practice  in  at  least  a  score  of  manual  arts.  No  animal 
would  profit  by  such  a  tutelage.  In  spite  of  all  claims 
that  have  been  made  as  to  the  ability  of  educated  horses 
and  dogs  to  reason,  there  is  no  clear  evidence  that  any  of 
them  perform  what  is  beyond  the  capability  of  others  of 
their  kind  except  as  they  tread  the  pathways  of  induced 
habits,  under  the  dominance  of  the  will  and  reason  of 
their  masters.  And  none  of  them  ever  uses  any  trick 
that  he  has  learned  in  solving  any  very  new  situation. 
But  the  child  is  educable.  Even  a  baby  a  year  old  per- 
forms experiments  when  he  is  alone.  He  stretches  after 
the  ball  that  is  beyond  his  reach  and  so  learns  to  creep. 


WHY  PARENTS  AND  HOMES  ARE  NEEDED    13 

After  he  has  learned  to  stand  he  reaches  for  something 
else.that  is  outside  his  radius,  and  so  learns  to  walk.  He 
not  only  learns  words,  but  he  performs  the  miracle  of 
composing  simple  sentences.  Children  still  too  young  to 
master  their  parents'  language  have  been  known  to  invent 
a  language  of  their  own  for  their  mutual  and  exclusive 
use.  Many  illustrations  of  this  sort  will  suggest  them- 
selves to  the  reader.  But  the  essential  thing  to  remember 
here  is  that  it  is  because  the  child  is  granted  time  and  is 
capable  of  taking  advantage  of  time,  to  imitate,  to  learn 
and  to  experiment,  that  his  infancy  is  a  most  significant 
fact.  One  of  our  unanswerable  colloquialisms  is,  "  What 
is  time  to  a  hen?  "  But  time,  added  to  capacity,  and 
assisted  by  an  educative  environment,  is  everything  to  a 
child. 

The  Need  of  Parents 

We  can  see  at  once,  therefore,  at  least  two  uses  for 
parents  and  homes:  the  very  existence  and  the  training 
of  a  human  child  to  any  measure  of  its  possibilities  de- 
pend upon  such  shelter  and  nurture.  Two  somewhat 
well-known  facts  illustrate  these  two  points.  One  is  that, 
even  in  the  best  conducted  orphanages  an  enormous  pro- 
portion of  the  babies  under  one  year  old  die,  and  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  there  seems  to  be  no  substitute  for 
the  assiduous  attention,  nestling  and  cradling  of  a  baby 
by  its  mother.  The  other  is  that  when  orphans  are  a 
little  older  and  remain  in  custody  they  show  little  human 
intelligence,  lacking  the  very  tools  of  learning. 

It  would  seem  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
of  home  education  during  the  years  between  one  and 
four.  "  The  importance  of  what  is  learned  in  the  ordi- 
nary home,"  says  Kirkpatrick,  "  is  suggested  by  the  fol- 
lowing notes  taken  from  Miss  Munro's  account  of  a 
child  taken  from  an  institution  at  three  years  of  age. 
She  could  talk  very  little,  but  could  understand  a  number 
of  words.  The  attendant  had  no  time  to  talk  with  her, 
but  only  to  tell  her  what  to  do.  She  had  no  idea  of  family 
relations,  '  mamma  '  meaning  any  of  the  nurses.     Little 


14         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING  . 

had  happened  to  her,  except  to  be  fed,  washed  and  dressed, 
and  she  had  no  idea  of  the  individual  ownership  of  any- 
thing, not  even  of  clothes.  The  most  she  knew  was  how 
to  care  for  babies,  learned  by  seeing  and  imitating  the 
nurses.  She  had  no  idea  of  a  doll,  dog,  cat  or  pictures 
and  did  not  know  she  could  not  walk  on  water.  She 
knew  nothing  of  colors  and  could  not  learn  to  discriminate 
and  match  them  for  a  long  time.  She  used  the  sense  of 
touch  a  great  deal.  She  distinguished  very  imperfectly 
between  imaginings  and  real  experiences.  She  was  a 
bright  child,  but  knew  so  little  that  the  family  concluded 
that  children  in  a  home  must  learn  more  in  the  first  three 
years  than  in  any  other  period  of  the  same  length.  This 
is,  therefore,  pre-eminently  the  period  in  which  the  mould- 
ing influences  of  the  home  have  most  complete  sway." 

And  only  second  in  importance  to  the  need  of  intelligent 
and  loving  nurture  is  the  need  of  adequate  privacy, 
shelter  and  a  stimulating  environment.  A  child  could  not 
be  brought  up  wisely  in  the  ward  of  an  institution  even  if 
there  were  a  mother  present  for  every  child.  Quietness, 
leisure  and  a  chance  for  meditation  and  review  are  essen- 
tial to  the  child,  so  easily  over-excited  and  over-stimu- 
lated. A  modern  child  could  not  be  trained  to  good 
advantage,  no  matter  how  attentive  were  his  parents,  if 
he  had  no  shelter  for  sleep,  warmth  and  the  comfortable 
taking  of  food.  An  environment  means  "  things," 
things  to  touch  and  handle,  things  to  see  and  hear,  things 
to  pull  apart,  put  together  and  make  changes  with.  A 
cave-home  was  almost  bare  of  things.  The  most  modest 
modern  equipment  for  housekeeping  includes,  in  the 
tools  for  cooking  and  cleaning,  in  the  very,  scraps  and 
fragments  that  are  about,  educative  materials  whose 
value  every  young  child  appreciates,  even  if  his  mother 
does  not. 

Infancy  the  Unifier  of  the  Family 

It  sometimes  is  claimed  that  woman's  right  to  political 
government  is  certified  by  the  fact  that  human  tribes 
were   once  governed  by  mother  chiefs    (matriarchates). 


WHY  PARENTS  AND  HOMES  ARE   NEEDED    15 

Others  oppose  this  argument.  What  we  know  of  early- 
human  history  convinces  us  that  neither  is  right,  since 
even  before  the  era  of  tribal  governments,  human  homes 
were  organized  and  virtually  governed  by  the  babies!  It 
was  their  demand  for  quiet  that  caused  their  nomad 
fathers  and  mothers  to  seek  permanent  abiding-places, 
and  it  was  their  wish  to  sleep  that  caused  the  first  curtains 
to  be  hung  in  cave-mouths  and  thus  provided  that  privacy 
which  not  only,  as  we  have  said,  was  needful  for  the 
child's  recuperation,  but  which  turned  a  mere  sleeping- 
place  into  a  home  sanctuary.  The  birth  of  a  baby  has 
always  reacted  strongly  upon  the  relations  of  a  father 
and  mother  to  each  other.  It  has  tended  to  make  per- 
manent a  bond  which  may  have  been  thought  of  as  casual 
or  temporary.  As  the  child  by  his  demands  upon  either 
parent  forced  him  perhaps  for  the  first  time  to  a  large 
unselfishness,  so  the  mutual  bearing  of  sacrifices  and  serv- 
ice tended  to  endear  the  parents  to  each  other.  In  all 
times,  too,  the  agony  of  child-bearing  and  the  utter 
devotion  of  motherhood  have  given  man  a  different  view- 
point of  woman;  he  has  come  to  see  that  not  only  her 
humanity  but  also  his  own  enfolds  spiritual  as  well  as 
fleshly  possibilities. 

We  see,  then,  that  not  only  are  homes  needful  for  babies, 
but  that  the  baby  in  a  very  true  historic  sense  has  been 
the  maker  of  the  home. 

Babies,  too,  were  the  builders  of  society.  Their  exis- 
tence, helplessness  and  needs  became  a  strong  argument 
for  clan  and  tribal  confederacies,  for  truces  and  treaties  of 
peace,  for  a  quiet  and  ordered  community  life.  And 
even  when  battles  were  fought  men  engaged  in  them  not 
for  rapine,  but  to  defend  their  own  fireplaces  and  to 
furnish  larger  resources  for  their  children.  The  so-called 
economic  causes  of  war  are  not  wholly  avarice  and  ma- 
terialism; they  are  partly  the  struggle  for  domestic  pros- 
perity for  the  sake  of  the  rising  generation.  Wasteful 
though  we  now  know  wars  to  be,  we  do  not  deny  them 
every  element  of  idealism  or  refuse  to  confess  that  the 


16         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

slogan  "  For  our  Fatherland  "  has  had  in  some  cases  a 
real  concern  for  the  fireside  and  children. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  closely  religion,  the  great- 
est unifier  of  men,  has  been  related  to  the  home.  Among 
all  peoples  we  find  the  gods  of  hearth-fire  and  threshold. 
Trumbull  even  argued  that  the  threshold  was  the  first 
altar.  We  are  familiar  with  the  Lares  and  Penates  of  the 
Romans,  and  in  modern  China  the  paper  divinities  who 
watch  each  year  the  doings  of  those  who  dwell  within  the 
walls  of  the  house. 

Some  form  of  family  worship  is  one  of  earth's  oldest 
institutions,  and  the  early  covenants  and  oaths  of  the 
young  were  sealed  in  the  presence  of  their  parents  before 
the  household  altar.  Those  who  come  to  us  from  the 
ancient  religious  cults  of  the  Far  East  are  more  amazed 
than  by  anything  else  in  our  so-called  Christian  house- 
holds to  learn  that  we  have  no  shrines,  no  family  acts  of 
reverence,  no  family  unison  of  parents  and  children  in 
recognition  of  the  divine. 

The  Family  in  the  Scriptures 
It  is  interesting  to  find  traces  of  all  the  facts  that  have 
been  noted  above  in  the  Scriptures.     There  is  in  both 
Testaments  a  recognition  of  the  physical,  intellectual  and 
religious  solidarity  of  the  family  that  is  so  absolute  as  to 
indicate  that  the  Hebrews  were  a  race  among  which  such 
recognition   had   been   of   the   greatest   antiquity.     The 
transcriptions  which  have  come   down  of   the  national 
code  speak  of  such  a  dependence  of  children  upon  parents 
that  parents  may  properly  be  punished  for  the  disorders 
of  their  offspring,  while  the  death  penalty  is  mentioned 
as  fitting  to  a  child  who  dishonors  his  parents.     What- 
ever may  have  been  the  dominant  sex  in  early  Syrian 
political  life,  it  is  singular  to  note  how  much  is  said  m  the 
Old  Testament  about  the  parental  duty  of  fathers  and 
how  little  about  the  parental  duty  of  mothers.     Even  in 
the  eulogy  upon  the  capable  woman  m  the  last  chapter  ot 
the  Book  of  Proverbs,  her  function  as  a  provider  and 
conserver  is  emphasized  and  little  is  said  about  her  duty 


WHY   PARENTS  AND   HOMES  ARE  NEEDED    17 

as  the  governor  of  her  children.  Apparently  it  was 
understood  that  this  had  been  attended  to  by  their  father. 
The  Biblical  teachings  about  the  Fatherhood  of  God  are 
not  appreciated  in  their  full  significance  until  we  enter 
freely  into  the  Scriptural  conception  of  the  full  functions 
of  human  fatherhood. 

There  is  not  room  here  to  enter  upon  the  vexed  subject 
of  divorce,  but  we  may  at  least  say  this,  that  the  atti- 
tude of  Jesus,  based  upon  the  principles  of  his  race,  shows 
in  its  very  austerity  the  belief  that  the  welfare  of  children 
was  the  chief  thing  to  consider  in  the  separation  of 
parents  and  the  consequent  breaking  up  of  homes. 

We  cannot  understand  completely  Jesus'  idea  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  unless  we  know  clearly  the  idea  of  the 
divine  family  out  of  which  it  sprung.  Scholars  are  agreed 
that  the  family  relation  with  God,  which  the  Hebrews 
held  as  both  a  patriotism  and  a  religion  and  which  began 
in  the  prophets  to  be  described  by  the  figure  of  the 
Kingdom,  was  taken  over  by  Jesus  and  illuminated. 
Indeed,  the  Sonship  idea  is  preferred  to  that  of  the  King- 
dom in  the  writings  that  bear  the  name  of  John.  So 
when  Jesus  said  that  "  of  such  "  as  children  is  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven,  He  must  have  meant  not  only  that  the 
citizens  of  that  Kingdom  must  be  childlike,  but  that  the 
Kingdom  actually  consists  in  part  of  children,  and  His 
attitude  in  blessing  them  implies  an  essential  care  that 
they  be  regarded  as  the  particular  concern  of  all  men  who 
are  really  loyal  to  that  Kingdom.  It  would  not  be  too 
much  to  say  that  Jesus,  in  that  startling  way  in  which  he 
so  often  forecasts  what  we  think  of  as  our  best  modern 
scholarship  and  wisdom,  put  an  evolutionary  emphasis 
upon  childhood  and  would  have  been  willing  to  grant  that 
in  a  true  sense  mature  humanity  still  exists  on  sufferance, 
its  way  or  aim  being  the  safety  and  nurture  of  those  who 
constitute  the  Kingdom-to-be. 

Reading  References 

For  a  full  mastery  of  Fiske's  contribution  to  our  conception  of  the  value 
of  infancy,  read  his  "  Destiny  of  Man."  IV  and  VI.  The  same  material  is 
reprinted  in  the  Riverside  Educational  Monographs  as  "  The  Meaning  of 


18         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD    TRAINING 

Infancy."  Fiske's  theoryis  also  summarized  in  Butler:  "  The  Meaning  of 
Education,"  3-34,  and  Kirkpatrick's  "  Fundamentals  of  Child  Study," 
3-7. 

For  a  more  thorough  study  of  the  functions  of  the  family,  see  Thwing: 
"  The  Family,"  VI-X.  For  an  even  more  extended  study,  turn  to  Wester- 
marck:  "  The  History  of  Human  Marriage." 

To  make  a  study  of  the  Scriptural  view  of  marriage,  search  the  refer- 
ences in  the  larger  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  under  the  word 
"  Family." 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT  COMPLETE  PARENTHOOD  INVOLVES 

The  Abiding  Functions  of  the  Home 
It  has  been  frequently  customary  among  Christian 
people  of  New  England  ancestry  to  compare  the  family 
status  in  the  good  old  days  of  the  Puritans  with  that 
which  commonly  exists  at  present.  Such  comparisons 
are  dangerous,  because  they  usually  tend  to  idealize  the 
methods  and  results  of  the  olden  time  and  to  depreciate 
the  average  situation  of  the  present.  In  the  primitive 
conditions  in  the  colonies  the  father  was  no  doubt  forced 
to  be  both  priest  and  teacher  in  his  own  household,  as  he 
has  not  the  time  nor  the  ability  nor,  it  must  be  confessed, 
the  need  to  be  today.  We  may  acknowledge,  too,  that 
there  is  an  over-readiness  now  to  relegate  the  priestly 
function  of  parenthood  to  the  church  and  the  teaching 
function  to  the  school.  Nevertheless  there  remain  certain 
fixed  values,  which  circumstances  and  even  such  relega- 
tions have  not  materially  changed. 

The  home  remains  the  place  where  most  of  the  personal 
habits  are  formed.  A  school  teacher  not  only  learns  to 
judge  a  given  home  by  the  kind  of  child  who  comes  from 
that  home,  but  she  recognizes  the  limitations  of  the  possi- 
bility of  either  neutralizing  or  lessening  the  influence  of 
that  home. 

Consequently  the  ideals,  which  in  childhood  are  formed 
almost  entirely  through  imitation,  must  be  created  largely 
in  the  home.  The  limitations  here  are  not  so  absolute, 
since  we  think  of  the  idealistic  period  as  coming  in  adoles- 
cence, when  the  youth  has  to  some  extent  become  emanci- 
pated from  constant  companionship  with  and  subservience 
to  his  parents.  A  lad  may  meet  a  teacher  or  a  friend 
during  these  impressionable  years  who  represents  a  level 
of  life  which  inspires  him  to  step  out  entirely  from  the  low 

19 


20         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

content  of  his  own  household.  But  this  is  unusual,  and 
where  the  home  ideals  are  of  the  highest  it  is  undesirable. 
What  brings  back  the  prodigal  seems  to  be  both  the 
lengthening  chain  of  habit  and  the  conquering  power  of 
the  home  ideals.  These  avail  especially  when  in  the  far 
country  he  begins  to  be  in  want. 

The  home,  then,  cannot  delegate  its  task.  It  must  not 
expect  the  school  to  alter  materially  the  child's  personal 
habits,  and  it  must  not  expect  the  church  to  revolutionize 
his  ideals.  The  impressionable  child  will  accept  these 
from  the  persons  with  whom  he  is  most  frequently  placed 
In  the  home  these  may  be  the  servants  rather  than  the 
parents,  if  the  parents  leave  the  child  to  the  servants.  In 
such  a  case  he  will  have  the  servants'  habits  and  ideals. 

The  Joys  of  Parenthood 

Particular  joys  of  parenthood  have  been  sung,  but  they 
have  not  often  been  seen  together. 

There  is  first  the  general  and  constant  joy,  after  chil- 
dren have  come  to  a  home,  that  they  furnish  completeness 
to  the  home  life.  Childless  persons  dimly  know  that  they 
live  too  much  with  their  own  generation,  that  they  tend 
to  perpetuate  the  arid  ways  of  spinsterhood  and  bachelor- 
hood, that  they  impinge  too  roughly  upon  each  other's 
personalities  without  any  soft  buffers  or  distractions 
between,  and  that  they  grow  selfish  and  self-indulgent. 
Children  restore  the  home  to  its  ancient  function.  It 
becomes  at  once  child-concentric  and  not  adult-concentric. 
Other-regarding  acts  become  constantly  obligatory  as 
well  as  delightful.  Anxiety  and  necessity  combine  to 
keep  the  parents  busy  in  mutual  service  of  the  third,  small 
and  helpless  individual.  That  which  was  the  quiet 
shelter  of  two  self-contained  persons  now  becomes  a 
community,  newly  related  to  its  members,  calling  forth 
talents  never  before  occupied  and  developing  others  that 
were  dormant,  and  related  to  the  outer  world,  as  never 
before,  of  physicians,  nurses,  other  parents,  neighbors,  and 
at  length  of  teachers,  playmates  and  chums.  The 
scratched  furniture,  the  cradle,  the  porch  hammock,  the 


WHAT   COMPLETE   PARENTHOOD   INVOLVES    21 

sand-pile  in  the  back  yard  are  not  so  ornamental  as  was 
the  well-kept  house  of  two,  but  all  these  are  simply  the 
parable  of  lives  to  whom  material  things  are  no  longer 
worshipped  as  fetishes,  but  are  being  used  as  the  tools  of 
life.  There  was  a  still  joy  in  quiet,  sober  pleasures,  intel- 
lectual repose,  but  the  child  brings  the  larger  and  more 
exuberant  joys  of  play,  fellowship,  avidness  of  life  and 
strenuous  and  even  stormy  living. 

Each  period  of  childhood  brings  its  own  special  joys 
to  parental  life.  The  hour  of  the  annunciation  has  been 
to  many  a  young  man  and  woman  the  first  sacred  con- 
tact with  reality.  The  months  of  waiting  are  the  first 
experience  in  meeting  a  situation  which  one's  own  will  and 
efficiency  are  powerless  to  control.  They  represent  a  veri- 
table waiting  upon  the  fates.  The  day  of  birth  is  the  most 
poignant  single  experience  which  man  or  woman  ever 
faces.  Its  happy  culmination  is  life's  most  solemn  joy. 
The  pathway  of  growth  along  which  a  young  child  passes 
is  even  to  the  most  unobservant  an  unbelievable  path  of 
light.  Adolescence,  which  has  become  almost  a  cant 
word,  is,  in  fact,  the  Golden  Age.  It  is  followed  by  a  few 
years,  too  few,  of  real  companionship  with  the  maturing 
man.  Then  comes  the  excitement  of  parting,  for  college, 
for  new  fields  of  work,  for  a  new  home,  and  then  the  living 
of  life  over  again  in  our  children's  children. 

The  loveliness  of  children  themselves,  even  more  than 
the  miracle  of  their  unfoldment,  is  a  parental  joy.  They 
are  in  babyhood,  as  Mrs.  Alice  Meynell  has  reminded  us, 
the  only  living  creatures  that  can  literally  be  compared 
to  flowers.  "  Those  small  school-going  people  of  the 
dawn  "  with  their  awakening  intelligence  and  powers  of 
speech  are  at  once  God's  greatest  miracle  and  his  choicest 
piece  of  humor.  The  long-legged,  loud-lunged  years  are 
not  apparently  so  lovable,  and  have  therefore  escaped 
study  and  appreciation,  yet  one  must  grant  that  their 
irresponsible  happiness  makes  them  enviable.  The  gusty 
years  of  youth  often  exasperate,  but  never  does  a  parent 
pierce  to  the  heart  of  some  idealism  which  underlay  what 
seemed  a  foolish  deed  of  vanity  or  a  crazy  one  of  adventure 


22         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

without  recognizing  that  he  is  dealing  with  a  fairy  queen 
or  a  young  troubadour,  feeling  himself  immeasurably  old. 
So  that  it  would  be  hard  to  say  which  age  is  most  fascinat- 
ing, since  all  are  so  lovely. 

There  is  also  the  joy  of  spiritual  parenthood,  possible 
to  those  who  never  have  "  children  of  their  own,"  the 
sense  of  sharing  the  universal  parenthood  and  of  knowing 
one's  office  to  be  a  public  trust. 

The  Duties  and  Responsibilities 

Did  all  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  parents  come 
at  once,  the  situation  would  no  doubt  be  insupportable. 

The  specific  duties  of  parents  are  suggested  in  each 
chapter  of  this  study  which  names  a  fresh  problem.  A 
summary  of  these  duties  may  be  helpful  here. 

There  are  the  duties  which  have  to  do  with  the  physical 
life  of  the  children.  Those  which  have  to  do  with  the 
physical  dependence  and  the  hygiene  of  childhood  are 
mentioned  in  Chapter  VI.  Those  which  pertain  to  the 
sex  life  are  considered  in  Chapter  XL 

There  are  the  duties  which  concern  the  mental  life. 
These  are  not  merely  the  problems  of  formal  and  school 
education  (considered  in  certain  later  chapters)  but  those 
relating  to  sense  perception,  the  training  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  training  of  the  will,  which  will  be  discussed 
in  Chapters  VIII,  XII  and  XVI.  The  home  in  a  true 
sense  makes  intellectually  the  child  with  whom  later  the 
school  has  to  do. 

The  social  life  of  the  child  takes  its  form  in  his  first 
social  group,  the  family.  Not  merely  his  manners,  but 
his  attitude,  his  generosity  or  selfishness,  his  out-looking 
or  in-looking  disposition  are  largely  fixed  before  he  goes 
into  outer  society. 

While  we  shall  study  in  special  chapters  the  moral  and 
religious  training  of  children,  and  especially  consider  the 
relation  of  the  church  to  such  training,  we  must  realize 
early  in  our  study  that  all  training  is  moral  training,  and 
that  each  week's  study  has  some  special  moral  implication 
in  the  life  of  growing  children. 


WHAT  COMPLETE  PARENTHOOD   INVOLVES    23 

Behind  this  fourfold  task  there  is  a  still  deeper  re- 
sponsibility. If  our  work  were  only  that  of  physical  care, 
mother-love  assisted  by  some  general  knowledge  of  hy- 
giene and  nursing  might  be  enough.  If  it  were  only  that 
of  intellectual  training,  mere  knowledge  might  suffice. 
But  an  all-round  task  requires  all-round  qualities  in  the 
doer  of  it.  To  love  we  must  add  knowledge  and  to  knowl- 
edge wisdom  and  to  wisdom  patience.  All  that  we  want 
our  child  to  become  ' '  must  in  our  own  hearts  first  keep 
school."  The  present  topic  of  study  is  mightily  essential, 
but  the  study  of  it  must  be  a  study  involving  feeling  and 
will  as  well  as  intelligence. 

The  Function  of  Motherhood 

We  cannot,  of  course,  dismiss  in  a  sentence  the  mani- 
fold work  of  a  mother. 

It  is  helpful,  however,  to  think  that  she  is,  not  only 
physically  but  mentally  and  morally,  the  life-bearer. 
That  is,  she  is  the  conserver.  Being  for  a  number  of 
years,  and  those  the  most  impressible  years  of  life,  the 
child's  constant  companion  and  almost  his  only  teacher, 
it  is  she  who  trains  his  earliest  sense  perceptions,  who 
tutors  his  first  attempts  at  expression  through  speech, 
who  arranges  the  materials  for  his  successive  appercep- 
tions, who  exercises  his  memory  and  who  furnishes  him 
with  the  first  tools  of  learning.  From  her  he  learns  the 
technique  of  living,  his  personal  habits,  human  legends 
and  the  human  story.  She  interprets  his  first  fears  and 
wonders  and  mediates  his  first  religious  feelings. 

The  mother's  most  noticeable  gifts  are  given  early, 
since  she  is  the  almost  sole  personal  influence  during  the 
nursery  days  and  the  predominant  influence  until  at 
least  the  twelfth  year.  Because  of  the  enduring  character 
of  early  impressions,  her  contribution  increases  with  com- 
pound interest.  After  her  physical  authority  diminishes, 
her  intellectual  and  moral  influence  should  be  more 
strongly  felt.  From  this  point  the  service  of  an  individual 
mother  depends  upon  herself.  When  the  child  matures 
to  the  friendship-making  years  her  contact  and  power 


24         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

depend  very  much  upon  her  ability  to  be  the  companion 
of  her  children.  There  is  nothing  magical  about  mother- 
hood per  se  that  enables  a  mother  who  is  not  intelligent 
to  be  an  intellectual  influence,  although  even  her  unsatis- 
fied strivings  often  communicate  the  zest  for  learning  to 
her  offspring.  Her  moral  influence,  too,  must  ultimately 
rest  in  what  she  is  and  not  in  what  she  adjures  her  children 
to  be. 

The  Function  of  Fatherhood 

The  world  is  just  beginning  to  discover  fatherhood. 
We  are  commencing  to  see  that  a  clean  inheritance  does 
not  exhaust  the  possibilities  of  paternal  bestowing.  The 
father  is  the  life-giver.  He  particularly  expresses  the 
masculine  standpoint  to  his  children,  and  from  the  wider 
sphere  in  which  he  usually  moves  he  should  be  able  to  do 
much  to  interpret  to  them  the  human  world  while  the 
mother  is  interpreting  to  them  their  personal  relations. 
If  not  absolutely  exhausted  by  his  day's  work  he  should 
be  able  to  bring  a  certain  breeziness  into  the  nursery  and 
there  to  supplement  (to  "  spell,"  as  we  say  in  New 
England)  his  wife  in  her  daily  task  of  play  and  work. 
He  ought  to  be  a  practicing  as  well  as  a  consulting  parent. 

In  many  homes — but  this  may  depend  upon  the  indi- 
vidual characters  of  the  father  and  mother — the  father  is 
the  court  of  appeals.  In  him  inheres  a  certain  authority, 
perhaps  because  of  his  masculine  strength,  and  a  certain 
heroic  quality  with  which  the  mother  enhaloes  him  to  the 
children. 

It  does  not  imply  that  women  are  intellectually  inferior 
when  we  find  a  special  potency  in  fatherhood  during 
adolescence.  To  the  daughter,  father  is  her  first  lover; 
to  the  son,  he  should  be  the  first  hero.  The  possible 
wholesomeness  of  a  close  and  anxious  watch-care  of  girls 
during  these  years  by  their  fathers  is  obvious.  The  duty 
of  fathers  to  step  in  with  redoubled  earnestness  when  it 
becomes  time  to  interpret  to  growing  boys  passions  and 
experiences  which  their  mothers  cannot  so  well  understand 
is  even  more  urgent. 


WHAT  COMPLETE   PARENTHOOD   INVOLVES    25 

When  children  come  to  maturity  it  is  hard  to  say  if 
there  is  any  essential  difference  between  the  influence  of 
either  parent  in  their  lives.  No  doubt  we  are  judged  as 
well  as  loved  by  our  grown-up  sons  and  daughters  and 
maintain  our  helpfulness  by  real  winsomeness  and  worth. 
No  doubt,  too,  where  a  marriage  is  characterized  by 
tender  and  ripened  affection,  the  spectacle  is  wholesomely 
influential  to  youth  and  the  intertwined  lives  speak  as 
one. 

Preparation  for  Parenthood 

Even  the  little  that  has  been  said  impresses  us  that 
parenthood  should  be  distinctly  a  skilled  profession. 
The  material  with  which  parents  work  is  complex,  plastic 
and  full  of  unforeseen  potentialities.  If  children  are 
to  be  wisely  trained,  they  will  not  happen  so,  but  parents 
need  to  see  clearly  what  they  want  their  children  to  be- 
come and  to  know  how  to  work  clearly  and  wisely  to  the 
desired  end.  And  this  art,  like  all  other  great  ones,  has 
its  spirit  as  well  as  its  technique. 

There  is  the  need  of  physical  fitness.  Some  persons 
have  no  right  to  beget  or  conceive  children.  We  will  not 
go  into  the  infections  and  diseases  which  make  this  true. 
It  is  more  generally  important  to  impress  upon  young  peo- 
ple that  their  making  the  most  of  the  physical  life  and  the 
avoidance  of  overstrain  or  debilitating  habits  or  excesses 
is  not  to  be  so  much  for  the  sake  of  athletic  prowess  or 
enhanced  joy  in  living  as  for  the  sake  of  the  next  genera- 
tion. 

There  is  the  need  of  intellectual  preparation.  It  yet 
seems  strange  that  this  business  with  which  three-fourths 
of  all  men  and  women  are  to  concern  themselves  for  the 
majority  of  their  years  should  almost  nowhere  be  a  topic 
of  study  in  the  schoolroom.  Experiments  that  are  being 
made  show  that  it  is  possible  both  in  the  public  schools 
"and  in  college  to  teach  without  embarrassment  and  with 
enthusiastic  response  the  art  of  home-making  and  the 
elements  of  the  care  of  children. 

There  is  also  the  need  of  spiritual  preparation.     The 


26         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

world  must  be  taught  to  desire  children.  Even  poetry- 
is  comparatively  silent,  though  it  sings  of  flowers  and 
women,  in  the  praise  of  those  who  are  more  lovely  than 
either.  Somehow  into  our  religious  education  there  must 
be  brought  the  viewpoint  that  shall  communicate  to  young 
people  the  sweet  and  chaste  anticipation  of  parenthood. 

The  Rights  of  a  Child 

The  whole  function  of  parenthood  is  not  seen  unless  we 
know  what  are  the  rights  of  a  child.  They  are  briefly 
three :  to  be  loved,  to  be  understood,  to  be  educated. 

An  unloving  intelligence  will  tend  to  make  a  child  an 
automaton.  A  non-understanding  love  will  tend  to  make 
him  a  selfish  brute.  An  uneducated  child  has  been 
robbed  of  his  rightful  inheritance. 

Summary 

What  then  does  complete  parenthood  involve  ? 

It  involves  preparation.  All  who  ever  become  parents 
should  have  sound  bodies  and  good  constitutions  and 
nervous  vitality  sufficient  to  guarantee  reasonable  poise 
and  self-mastery;  they  should  have  some  knowledge  of 
childhood  and  of  the  arts  of  home-making  and  child- 
training;  they  should  be  ready  reverently  and  joyfully  to 
accept  their  task. 

It  involves  responsibility.  The  home  still  has  the 
abiding  function  of  shaping  largely  the  child's  habits 
and  ideals.  Mothers  and  fathers  have  particular  and 
reciprocal  duties. 

It  involves  great  joys.  Children  give  parents  more 
than  they  take  from  them.  Only  in  some  sort  of  parent- 
hood, natural  or  spiritual,  does  man  attain  his  highest 
social  and  spiritual  experiences. 

Reading  References 

Read  further  in  Thwing:  "  The  Family,"  XL 

For  pleasant  and  helpful  discussions  or  the  separate  functions  of  moth- 
ers and  fathers,  see  Hodge:  "  The  Happy  Family,"  17-40;  Martin:  "  The 
Luxury  of  Children,"  55-71,  and  Lyman  Abbott's  "  The  Home  Builder," 


WHAT  COMPLETE   PARENTHOOD   INVOLVES    27 

43-58.     A  more  scientific  discussion  of  the  functions  of  parenthood  is 
found  in  Drummond's  "  The  Ascent  of  Man,"  VIII,  IX. 

For  an  introduction  to  eugenics,  read  Davenport's  smaller  work,  "  Eu- 
genics," hardly  more  than  a  pamphlet.  For  a  fuller  discussion,  turn  to 
"  Eugenics:  Twelve  University  Lectures,"  written  by  as  many  university 
professors,  published  by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  A  helpful  book  on  the  prac- 
tical side  of  home-making  is  Bruere's  "  Increasing  Home  Efficiency," 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE   MAIN   PERIODS   OF   CHILDHOOD 

Childhood  has  been  divided  by  students  into  from 
seven  to  ten  short  periods,  but  such  fine  and  detailed 
distinctions  may  tend  to  obscure  the  large,  main  currents 
of  development.  We  will,  therefore,  name  but  three: 
infancy  and  childhood,  birth  to  eight  years  inclusive ;  boy- 
hood and  girlhood,  nine  to  twelve  years  inclusive;  adoles- 
cence, thirteen  to  maturity  (with  boys,  fourteen  or  over  to 
maturity). 

Infancy  and  Childhood 

The  child  is  a  bundle  of  instincts.  These  instincts 
impel  him  to  the  greatest  physical  activity.  Through  his 
activities  he  first  gets  control  of  his  own  bodily  move- 
ments and  then  annexes  the  exterior  world.  The  instinct 
of  curiosity  especially  enables  him  to  question  by  word 
and  experiment,  to  find  out  the  causes  and  secrets  of 
everything  around  him.  His  senses  become  the  means  of 
search  and  his  muscles  the  agents  for  finding  out.  By 
the  fourth  year,  curiosity  expresses  itself  in  running  away 
and  in  gathering  collections,  mostly  of  trivial  objects. 
Imitation  leads  him  still  further  to  discover,  as  by  confi- 
dently following  the  examples  of  others  he  attains  the 
certainty  of  their  own  experiences.  The  play  instinct, 
which  occupies  most  of  a  young  child's  waking  hours, 
draws  him  strongly  into  imitation  as  he  plays  out  adult 
activities.  He  first  imitates  acts,  then  ideas,  and  at 
length  learns  how  to  adapt  the  acts  of  adults  to  play  ideas 
of  his  own.  The  young  child's  disorderly  and  unorganized 
impulses  would  lead  him  into  peril  were  it  not  for  his  trust 
and  docility.  In  response  to  loving  firmness  he  makes 
obedience  his  law  and  this  habit  leads  him  into  many  other 
wholesome  personal  habits  which  are  suggested  by  parental 

28 


THE   MAIN   PERIODS   OF   CHILDHOOD  29 

authority.  Self-assertion  is  prominent  in  the  third  year, 
but  a  real  detachment  of  his  personality  from  that  of  his 
parents,  with  the  manifestation  of  conscious  selfishness 
and  genuine  rebellion,  is  common  between  five  and  six. 

As  to  the  specific  attainments  of  the  child,  his  first  year 
is  spent  chiefly  in  controlling  his  limbs  and  his  posture  and 
in  beginning  the  exercise  of  locomotion.  During  the 
second  year  there  is  some  command  of  speech,  the  begin- 
ning of  a  vocabulary  and  transitory  memory.  The  child 
recognizes  pictures  and  colors  and  shows  a  sense  of  rhythm 
and  tune.  During  the  third  year,  sentence-making  is 
possible,  voluntary  recollection  appears  and  there  is 
distinct  power  of  inhibition.  The  fourth  to  the  sixth 
years  find  the  child  able  to  read  a  little  and  to  write 
and  to  pick  up  some  foreign  phrases.  The  third  year  had 
been  characterized  by  fears  due  to  the  quickening  of  the 
imagination.  Interest  in  fairy  stories  began.  During 
the  fourth  to  the  sixth  years,  imagination  is  even  more 
active,  but  now  takes  the  creative  turn,  and  the  child 
engages  constantly  in  dramatic  imitation  in  his  play. 
He  can  now,  to  a  considerable  extent,  separate  truth  from 
make-believe,  and  is  capable  of  real  truth-telling. 

Socially,  there  is  a  development  also.  During  the 
first  year  the  child  is  stimulated  by  what  people  do  but 
does  not  care  what  they  say  or  think.  In  the  third  year 
a  distinct  desire  for  approval  is  manifest.  Before  he  is 
six  he  likes  companions,  but,  unless  he  is  already  used  to 
them  in  his  own  home,  he  plays  with  them  somewhat 
stormily. 

Before  the  fourth  year  the  child  gets  his  knowledge  of 
right  and  wrong  solely  by  imitation.  To  him,  what  brings 
approval  is  right;  what  does  not,  is  wrong.  Before  he  is 
six  he  is  capable  of  some  moral  judgment,  but  his  virtues 
consist  chiefly  in  such  routine  ones  as  tidiness,  politeness, 
patience,  doing  things  at  command,  with  some  measure 
of  genuine  kindliness.  Joy  is  a  specially  vital  power 
during  the  last  two  years  of  this  period. 


30         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

Boyhood  and  Girlhood 

The  instincts  are  still  centrally  active,  and  their  physi- 
cal expression  is  still  constant,  though  not  quite  as  lively 
as  before.  The  child's  increased  power  of  locomotion 
now  leads  him  farther  afield  and  he  plays  out  of  doors 
more  and  has  a  much  wider  range  of  experience.  Toward 
the  close  of  this  period  he  seeks  companions  constantly 
and  begins  to  play  more  or  less  steadily  and  peaceably 
with  a  selected  group,  but  in  general  his  play  continues 
to  be  strongly  individualistic.  Games  involving  an  in- 
creasing element  of  skill,  handicraft  and  organization 
gradually  supplant  free  play.  These  follow  imitative, 
dramatic  and  constructive  lines  until  the  boy  begins  the 
great  field  games  of  baseball  and  football,  which  are  really 
highly  educative,  though  he  does  not  know  it.  During 
these  years,  children  who  live  in  communities  generally 
pass  through  most  of  the  common  infections.  There  is 
also  a  frequent  physical  setback  between  eight  and  nine, 
but  toward  the  last  of  the  period  children  usually  manifest 
a  sturdy,  solid  physical  growth.  By  the  tenth  year  girls 
become  a  year  more  mature  physically  than  boys.  Their 
play  never  becomes  as  strenuous  as  that  of  boys,  and  soon, 
largely  because  of  adult  influence,  they  become  spectators 
rather  than  actors. 

The  memory  develops  and  becomes  extraordinarily 
tenacious,  the  senses  are  alert  and  their  perceptions  are 
still  sensitive  to  training,  the  emotions  are  free  and  un- 
controlled and  the  imagination  revels  first  in  the  realms  of 
fairy  stories  and  wonder  tales  and  later  in  stories  of  human 
adventure.  The  child  lives  in  the  present,  is  frank  and 
confidential  and  talkative,  and  should  by  this  time  have 
the  habit  of  obedience. 

As  to  specific  attainments,  a  child  is  usually  capable  of 
learning  a  language  by  eight  and  can  often  sing  and  read 
at  sight  at  about  the  same  age.  He  is  interested  by  this 
time  in  collections,  pets,  exploring  and  the  functions  of  his 
own  body.  The  growing  interest  in  handicraft  may  bring 
him  by  the  last  of  this  period  to  considerable  proficiency 


THE  MAIN  PERIODS  OF  CHILDHOOD  31 

in  such  activities  as  drawing,  printing  and  embroidery. 
Practical  interests  are  characteristic  between  ten  and 
twelve.  After  a  period  of  discouragement  during  the 
physical  setback,  he  develops  a  keen  love  of  fun  and 
usually  before  the  close  of  the  period  is  living  life  with 
the  deepest  intensity,  quite  self-regarding,  often  with  a 
delight  in  teasing  and  bullying,  beginning  to  be  suscep- 
tible to  evil,  yet  having  an  encouraging  increase  of  respect 
for  law  and  authority.  If  we  have  trained  his  preferences 
wisely  in  the  first  part  of  this  era  they  should  become 
protective  to  him  against  moral  and  social  offences  during 
the  latter  part. 

He  is-  credulous  as  to  religious  matters  and  takes  them 
as  a  matter  of  course  into  his  consciousness.  He  is  not 
capable  of  certain  adult  types  of  sorrow  for  sin,  but  he 
is  developing  in  self -consciousness  and  toward  the  end  of 
the  period  he  may  show  a  greatly  increased  sense  of 
personal  responsibility. 

Adolescence 

Into  this  interesting  and  critical  stage  girls  come  at 
least  a  year  before  boys.  Its  approach  is  heralded  by 
unmistakable  physical  signs  —  very  rapid  growth,  awk- 
wardness, increase  of  heart,  lungs  and  large  arteries, 
growth  of  muscles,  need  for  more  sleep  and  food;  later 
there  is  a  general  broadenmg  out,  and  the  coming  of  the 
changes  wThich  constitute  masculine  and  feminine  matur- 
ity. Growth  is  fitful  as  well  as  rapid  and  tends  to  be 
followed  by  seasons  of  languor  before  another  influx  of 
life. 

There  is  now  a  series  of  avid  and  undiscriminating 
enthusiasms,  partly  for  new  subjects  of  learning,  partly 
for  new  kinds  of  experience.  The  senses  become  much 
more  acute  and  the  physical  world  takes  on  a  new  beauty, 
the  emotions  are  easily  stirred  and  the  youth  enjoys  their 
intoxication.  The  imagination  turns  inward  more  and 
the  youth  idealizes  himself,  dreams  of  what  he  can  do 
and  adventure,  and  loves  to  see  himself  in  heroic  situations 
with  many  admirers  in  the  audience.     Personal  ambition 


32         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

awakens,  and  while  it  meets  some  disillusions  as  the 
young  person  finds  he  is  still  not  yet  equal  to  his  en- 
deavors, it  grows  stronger  and  soberer  as  he  draws  near 
the  choice  of  a  vocation. 

The  social  consciousness  strongly  awakens  and  social 
organizations  of  young  people  with  those  of  their  own  sex 
become  almost  universal.  Real  team  play  succeeds 
individualism  and  athletic  games  take  the  place  of  free 
play.  A  sentiment  for  the  other  sex  is  felt  by  girls 
earlier  than  by  boys,  but  until  it  arouses  in  boys  there  is 
a  certain  repulsion  between  the  sexes.  The  shy  and 
romantic  interest  of  boys  is  succeeded  by  active  seeking 
and  finally  by  a  hearty  social  life  between  the  sexes. 
Interest  in  personal  adornment  is  keen.  At  this  stage 
the  boy  or  girl  is  likely  to  forsake  the  gang  to  some  extent 
in  favor  of  the  chum.  Groups  of  boys'  and  girls'  gangs — 
"  our  crowd,"  as  it  is  called — are  common.  Team  play 
in  games  is  now  complete.  Group  games  are  character- 
istic. 

Individualism  is  now  rampant.  Affectations  appear. 
The  mind,  restless  and  full  of  energy,  begins  to  be  inde- 
pendent. Often  there  is  a  revulsion  against  the  home, 
stubbornness  and  reticence  and  unwillingness  to  be 
commanded.  Secretiveness  is  common  and  a  consequent 
feeling  of  loneliness.  There  are  varying  moods,  a  sense  of 
misunderstanding  and  of  being  misunderstood,  and  crav- 
ing for  sympathy.  The  wanderlust  may  drive  the  boy 
in  his  search  for  fresh  experiences  even  to  forsake  his 
home  and  become  a  vagabond  traveller  or  worker.  Inter- 
est in  vocation  sometimes  comes  as  early  as  fifteen.  A 
period  of  genuine  intellectual  doubt,  if  it  comes,  appears 
late,  perhaps  at  about  eighteen. 

The  enhanced  feeling-life,  the  sense  of  having  something 
to  settle  and  the  consciousness  of  complete  personal  re- 
sponsibility constitute  a  definite  crisis-element  not  uni- 
versal but  very  common  somewhere  between  thirteen  and 
sixteen.  Religious  conversions  most  commonly  occur  at 
this  time.  The  acme  of  juvenile  crime  is  at  the  same 
period.     Occasions  of  failure  and  shame  are  now  especially 


THE  MAIN  PERIODS  OF  CHILDHOOD  33 

epoch-making.  New  light  upon  nature,  duty,  vocation 
is  now  particularly  effective  in  character-forming. 

In  the  later  years  there  is  a  reconstructive  tendency. 
The  life  settles  down  into  its  groove,  reason  becomes 
dominant,  enthusiasm  is  harnessed,  love  seeks  its  own 
mate,  judgment  of  self  is  fairer.  The  vocation  is  deter- 
mined upon.  There  is  a  reconstruction  of  faith.  The 
youth  swings  back  into  domestic  ways  as  he  begins  to 
plan  for  a  home  of  his  own.  Enthusiasm  for  work  is 
generally  very  strong. 

Even  in  making  this  very  brief  summary  we  have  tried 
to  indicate  only  the  most  familiar  manifestations.  They 
do  not  appear  in  all  or  in  children  at  exactly  the  same 
time  or  in  the  same  order.  There  are,  as  we  shall  see  in 
the  next  chapter,  many  types  of  children,  and  each  type 
has  to  a  degree  its  own  history. 

Reading  References 

An  excellent  outline  of  the  periods  of  child  life  is  found  in  Kirkpatrick's 
"  Individual  in  the  Making."  III.  A  summary  of  Stanley  Hall's  divisions 
of  these  periods  is  in  Partridge:  "  Genetic  Education,"  VIII.  Tyler: 
"  Growth  and  Education  "  has  summarized  these  periods,  104-114.  and 
discoursed  upon  their  physical  basis,  115-197.  Bolton:  "  Principles  of 
Education,"  63-188,  discusses  at  length  the  culture-epoch  theory  and 
gives  a  fuller  statement  of  the  relation  between  the  growth  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  development  of  the  race. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE   PRINCIPAL  TYPES   OF   CHILDREN 

A  close  classification  would  reveal  as  many  types  of 
children  as  there  are  children,  but  there  are  certain 
broad  resemblances  and  differences  which  are  helpful  be- 
cause they  enable  us  to  compare  our  own  with  other  chil- 
dren and  to  forecast  certain  tendencies  and  devise  certain 
treatment  for  the  children  in  our  own  households.  The 
following  distinctions,  based  chiefly  upon  Edith  E.  Read 
Mumford's  "  The  Dawn  of  Character,"  will  be  found 
reasonably  useful  in  the  study  of  children.  These  are  as 
follows : 

1.  Children  in  whom  strength  of  will  and  determination 
are  the  most  marked  characteristics. 

2.  Children    characterized    by    the    strength    of    their 
emotions. 

3.  Children  marked  by  the  keenness  of  their  reasoning 
faculties. 

4.  Children  of  exceptional  responsiveness. 

5.  "  Average  "  children,  those  who  do  not  exhibit  any 
one  quality  in  excess. 

6.  Those  who  are  weak  in  some  definite  direction. 

Children  op  Strong  Will 

These  seem  to  be  of  two  sorts.  There  are  those  who 
show  their  strength  of  will  by  masterfulness,  in  the  in- 
stinctive desire  to  lead  and  to  be  in  authority.  There 
are  others  who  show  their  strength  of  will  chiefly  in  the 
tenacity  with  which  they  hold  to  one  purpose.  Their 
aim  is  not  mastery  over  their  fellows,  but  rather  the 
conquest  of  some  definite  obstacle.  Of  the  former  type 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  Gladstone  and  Roosevelt  would 
be  examples;  of  the  latter,  David  Livingstone. 

These  children  are  not  so  difficult  to  train  if  only  we 

34 


THE   PRINCIPAL  TYPES   OF   CHILDREN  35 

understand  them.  A  little  girl  is  cited  who  always  in- 
sists upon  acting  upon  her  own  initiative.  "  I  don't  want 
to  be  good,"  she  is  in  the  habit  of  saying  when  told  to  be 
good.  She  adds,  however,  "  I  will  want  to  be  good 
presently,  but  not  yet.  I'll  tell  you  when."  It  wouldn't 
seem  to  be  unreasonable,  in  such  a  case,  to  give  her  time 
to  come  to  self-mastery  and  choose  goodness  of  her  own 
accord.  Similarly  a  child  says,  "  I  hate  to  be  told  to  do 
things;  I  like  to  do  them  myself."  Sometimes  there  are 
two  such  children  in  one  family.  Miss  Mumford  cites  an 
amusing  incident  of  this  sort.  Robert  and  Margaret 
were  the  children.  One  morning  at  breakfast  Robert 
was  asked  if  he  would  take  his  milk  hot  or  cold.  He 
answered,  "  What  is  Margaret  having?  I  will  have  the 
opposite."  But  Margaret  refused  to  say  first.  Things 
were  at  a  standstill.  At  last  she  said  to  her  brother, 
"  If  I  promise  to  have  something  different  from  you,  will 
you  say  first?  "  To  that  he  agreed  and  chose  cold  milk 
and  she  took  hot.  She  had  not  yielded  to  his  desire  that 
she  should  say  first,  but  he  was  also  satisfied  because  he 
had  not  been  copied. 

There  is  one  comfort, —  such  a  child  is  usually  a  lad  of 
parts  and  something  strong  may  be  hoped  for  from  him. 

Children  of  Strong  Emotions 
These  children  are  of  at  least  two  sorts.  There  are 
those  who  are  sulky.  Being  more  sensitive,  they  are 
more  easily  hurt.  They  draw  back  into  themselves  when 
they  are  reproved  or  disappointed.  In  contrast  to  these, 
the  joyous,  expansive  natures  stand  out.  They,  too,  feel 
strongly,  but  being  gifted  with  self-expression,  they  are 
never  depressed  and  seldom  unhappy.  The  former  is, 
on  the  whole,  an  unwholesome  type.  If  such  characters 
are  to  develop  as  they  are  capable  of  developing,  we  must 
help  their  natures  to  expand.  In  the  joy  of  expression 
they  will  lose  their  tendency  to  dwell  within  themselves. 

Children  op  Keen  Reasoning  Faculties 
If  the  last  type  was  that  of  the  poet,  this  is  that  of  the 
scientist.     Huxley  was  of  this  type.     "  What  have  I  done 


36         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

in  the  way  of  acquired  knowledge  since  January  ?  ' '  wrote 
this  sober-minded  youth  in  his  diary  when  he  was  sixteen 
years  old.  Accordingly,  he  made  a  list  of  projects  com- 
pleted. Then  he  adds:  "  I  must  get  on  faster  than  this. 
I  must  adopt  fixed  times  for  study,  for  unless  it  is  done  I 
find  it  slips  away  without  knowing  it.  And  let  me  re- 
member this,  that  it  is  better  to  read  a  little  and  thor- 
oughly than  to  cram  crude,  undigested  matter  into  my 
head,  though  it  be  great  in  quantity."  Such  a  child  will 
shine  in  mathematics  and  in  patient  experimentation.  He 
is  likely,  however,  unless  brought  in  youth  into  close  con- 
tact with  humanity  and  with  fine  arts,  to  become,  as 
Herbert  Spencer  confesses  of  himself,  blind  and  undevel- 
oped upon  certain  sides  of  his  nature. 

Children  of  Exceptional  Responsiveness 
If  such  children  are  "  wax  to  receive,"  they  are  usually 
emotional;  if  "  marble  to  retain,"  intellectual,  in  type. 
They  are,  however,  seldom  characterized  by  strength  of 
will,  self-determination.  Neither  leadership  nor  mastery 
is  their  characteristic.  Such  children  are  easy  to  train 
but  hard  to  make  strong.  They  need  to  develop  a  sense 
of  right  and  wrong,  moral  judgment.  Otherwise,  when 
they  leave  the  nursery  for  a  larger  world,  their  future 
cannot  be  predicted.  They  are  likely  to  break  down 
when  facing  difficulties  and  limitations.  Such  children 
must  be  forced  to  rely  upon  themselves,  to  hold  fast  to 
their  own  ideas  and  not  to  be  carried  away  by  others. 

Average  Children 
It  would  be  better  to  speak  of  them  as  children  of  even 
development.  The  will,  with  such,  does  not  run  away 
with  the  judgment;  neither  does  their  emotional  nature 
overwhelm  their  reason.  Their  responsiveness  is  not  so 
extreme  as  to  make  them  helpless.  Such  children  do 
not  lead  classes  in  school,  do  not  become  captains  of  ath- 
letic teams,  do  not  shine  on  public  occasions.  They  are, 
however,  comforting  to  live  with,  and  their  evenness  of 
nature  forms  the  very  best  foundation  for  special  develop- 


THE   PRINCIPAL  TYPES   OF  CHILDREN         37 

ment  in  some  exceptional  direction  which  may  come  with 
adolescence. 

Children  Weak  in  Some  Definite  Direction 

We  have  in  mind  in  this  present  category  not  children 
who  are  mentally  defective,  but  those  who  deviate  from 
the  average  types  by  being  exceptionally  nervous,  wanting 
in  the  power  of  self-control,  lacking  in  the  power  of  concen- 
tration, or  obstinate  because  lacking  in  reasoning  power. 
The  child  who  falls  in  any  of  these  categories  is  the  con- 
verse of  some  type  which  has  been  mentioned  above. 

Let  us  dwell,  in  this  general  summary,  upon  only  two  of 
these  special  varieties  of  deficiency.  We  will  take  first 
the  nervous  child.  On  the  physical  side,  as  Terman  tells 
us,  the  nervous  child  is  likely  to  be  restless,  easily  startled 
or  shocked  and  to  suffer  from  muscular  twitches.  The 
most  significant  symptoms,  however,  are  not  physical, 
but  emotional  and  volitional.  The  nervous  child  turns 
easily  from  laughter  to  tears,  is  quick  to  anger,  peevish, 
irritable,  etc.  There  may  be  a  constant  hunger  for  excite- 
ment and  distraction,  as  such,  in  a  variety  of  amusements. 
Such  a  child  is  not  happy  without  an  array  of  occupations 
and  playthings.  He  may  develop  a  number  of  eccen- 
tricities or  crude  personal  habits.  Usually  sleep  is  de- 
fective. The  life  of  such  a  child  is  often  made  wretched 
by  haunting  fears.  There  may  be  a  feeling  of  weakness 
and  self-distrust.  The  moral  life  is  also  involved,  for,  as 
Terman  informs  us:  "  Morality  is  nothing  but  the  appro- 
priate issue  of  thought  and  emotion  in  conduct."  The 
moral  feelings  of  a  nervous  child  are  those  that  go  with  a 
feeling  of  weakness  and  incapacity.  His  dependence  is 
not  so  much  due  to  the  overpowering  strength  of  his 
impulses  as  to  the  weakness  of  his  control.  Such  a  child 
may,  especially  during  adolescence,  develop  hysteria, 
dementia  precox  or  St.  Vitus'  dance.  Let  us  suppose, 
however,  that  the  case  is  by  no  means  so  serious.  The 
child  is  deficient  in  self-control  but  not  so  alarmingly  so 
that  he  may  not  be  dealt  with  successfully  by  kindliness 
and  patience  at  home.     It  may  be  that  he  is  suffering 


38         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD   TRAINING 

from  suppressed  feeling  due  to  some  inordinate  fear, 
anxiety  or  desire,  the  discovery  of  which  will  itself  bring 
relief.  Social  experience  is  indispensable  and  usually  a 
quick  corrective  for  the  tendency  of  such  children  to 
dwell  upon  themselves.  The  egoism  which  makes  them 
wish  to  withdraw  will  vanish  as  soon  as  they  have  come 
into  happy  contact  and  hearty  relations  with  other 
children.  Such  children  require  careful  and  patient 
training.  They  need  what  Terman  calls  "  the  sanifying 
effects  of  work,"  and  especially  of  successful  work.  Their 
desires  are  often  incident  to  certain  stages  of  their  develop- 
ment and  their  finer  sensibilities  are  frequently  a  prophecy 
of  pure  taste  and  artistic  achievement. 

One  variety  of  children  who  are  deficient  is  character- 
ized by  lack  of  self-control.  When  such  children  engage 
in  passionate  outbreaks,  some  persons  suppose  they  are 
the  result  of  a  strong  will.  The  contrary  is  probably  the 
case.  Miss  Mumford  makes  several  successful  sugges- 
tions as  to  understanding  and  training  such  children.  In 
the  first  place,  we  must  see  that  self-control  is  impossible 
unless  there  is  a  kind  but  even  discipline.  Therefore,  we 
must  enter  sympathetically  into  the  child's  difficulties, 
yet  make  laws  governing  the  child's  life  to  be  as  unvarying, 
impartial  and  impersonal  as  the  laws  of  nature.  Next, 
we  must  ourselves  be  unhesitating.  Take  as  much  time 
as  necessary  to  make  up  your  mind,  but  do  not  allow  such 
a  child  to  know  that  the  decision  is  difficult,  and  when  it 
is  reached,  calmly  maintain  it.  Third,  we  should  never 
directly  oppose  such  a  child  unless  it  is  necessary.  We 
should  avoid  provocation  and  controversy,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  postponement  is  impossible,  give  the 
child  himself  time  to  think  and  choose,  but  place  the 
exercise  of  reason  and  choice  in  the  child's  own  mind 
rather  than  in  the  field  of  contest  or  within  our  own 
authority. 

The  purpose  in  this  chapter  has  been  not  to  furnish  a 
code  of  laws  for  the  government  of  children,  or  even  a 
thorough  analysis  of  their  types  of  character,  but  rather 
to  name  a  few  of  the  outstanding  phenomena  and  situa- 


THE   PRINCIPAL  TYPES   OF   CHILDREN         39 

tions  which  are  likely  to  occur.  We  are  doing  something 
to  train  a  child  wisely  when  we  can  locate  him,  if  we  can 
discover  his  strong  factors,  if  we  can  understand  him  in 
contrast  with  children  of  other  types.  In  chapters  which 
follow  we  shall  take  up  more  definitely  some  of  the  special 
problems  of  discipline  and  control. 

Reading  References 

The  references  to  Mumford:  "  Dawn  of  Character,"  upon  which  this 
chapter  is  based,  are  178-195.  Home:  "  Idealism  in  Education,"  also 
has  a  brief  discussion  of  the  subject,  and  Chamberlain,  in  "  The  Child," 
catalogs  the  various  lists  that  have  been  made  of  the  different  types  as 
well  as  periods  of  childhood,  51-105. 


CHAPTER  VI 

WHAT  THE  BODY  HAS  TO  DO  WITH  CHARACTER 

Food 

"  The  fundamental  basis  of  religion  is  nutrition,"  some- 
what startlingly  says  Dr.  Theodore  G.  Soares.  But  it  is 
true.  One  can  still  conceive  a  starveling  saint,  if  he  is  a 
mature  man,  who  has  not  starved  too  long,  but  one  can 
hardly  conceive  of  a  saintly  child  who  has  been  starved. 
Instead,  we  would  find  a  whimpering,  peevish  animal. 
The  physician  does  not  regard  life  as  safely  begun  physi- 
cally until  the  absorption  of  plenty  of  nutriment  by  the 
system  has  become  well  established.  The  moralist  finds 
nothing  to  begin  upon  morally  until  this  is  a  fact. 

When  a  young  child  is  cross,  ill-tempered,  disobedient, 
outrageous,  we  do  not  blame  him  for  depravity,  we 
examine  him  for  indigestion  or  other  bodily  disorder. 
Backwardness  in  school,  inability  to  attend,  headaches, 
loss  of  interest  in  play,  lack  of  affectionateness,  all  suggest 
malnutrition. 

Among  adolescents,  nutritive  disorders  are  common, 
caused  by  hurried  lunches,  improper  food,  neglect  of  the 
excretory  processes  or  loss  of  appetite  through  worry, 
overwork  or  overplay. 

The  human  boiler  must  be  properly  stoked  and  have 
clear  drafts  if  it  is  going  to  generate  its  quota  of  physical, 
mental  or  moral  power. 

Sleep 
The  benediction  of  a  nightly  restoration  is  such  that 
the  child  who  loses  it,  whether  because  of  neglect  or  dissi- 
pation, is  rapidly  spending  his  none-too-abundant  life- 
surplus.  Some  studies  that  have  been  undertaken  show 
that  there  is  still  an  extraordinary  number  of  American 
children  who  sleep  in  beds  with  others,  in  rooms  with 

40 


BODY  AND   CHARACTER  41 

closed  windows,  or  in  the  midst  of  conditions  of  noise, 
interruption  or  tainted  air  that  deprive  them  of  normal 
rest.  Some  adults  regret  that  sleep  habits  formed  in 
childhood  still  send  them  to  bed  untimely  early  at  night 
and  appear  to  rob  them  of  their  proportion  of  the  wakeful 
hours  of  life,  but  much  more  is  lost  to  the  children  who 
are  inured  to  short  nights,  who  are  kept  awake  till  late 
hours  when  very  young  and  who  are  permitted  to  attend 
many  parties  and  theatres  during  their  school  days.  A 
recent  investigation  in  Iowa  shows  that  fifty-nine  per  cent 
of  the  high  school  pupils  studied  in  certain  towns  spent 
four  evenings  a  week  or  less  at  home.  The  pupils  who 
were  reported  as  spending  four  to  seven  entire  evenings 
at  home  average  fifty-eight  failures  in  specific  subjects 
per  hundred  pupils,  while  those  who  reported  spending 
from  none  to  three  evenings  a  week  at  home  averaged 
one  hundred  thirty-five  such  failures  per  hundred  pupils. 

Clothing 

Whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  clothing,  its  purpose,  as 
far  as  a  young  child  is  concerned,  is  simply  protection, 
with  the  least  possible  hampering  of  bodily  control  and 
movement.  Simplicity  in  design,  simpleness  of  material 
and  texture,  cleanliness  and  attractiveness  of  color  may 
be  demanded,  but  ornament  and  elaborateness  of  design 
and  delicacy  of  fabric  or  color  are  unsuitable.  It  is  not 
desirable  that  the  child  should  be  prevented  by  the 
nature  of  his  garments  from  free  play,  dirt  and  water,  or 
that  he  should  be  conscious  of  his  clothes  or  of  himself. 
The  custom  of  putting  "  rompers  "  on  little  girls  and  boys 
alike  is  most  sensible.  Physicians  and  moralists  agree 
that  it  is  wholesome  for  girls  to  pass  through  an  un- 
hampered tom-boy  period,  but  since  it  is  necessary  to 
catch  a  girl  early  before  older  people  try  to  make  her 
sophisticated,  there  is  no  better  way  to  bring  this  to  pass 
than  to  dress  her  for  lively  play  as  early  and  as  long  as 
possible.  Gradually  the  child  may  be  taught  useful 
lessons  as  to  neatness  and  cleanliness  in  the  care  of  clothes, 
but  they  are  taught  most  effectively  if  the  periods  of  con- 


42         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD    TRAINING 

straint  are  made  very  short  at  first.  To  clean  up  a  child 
and  expect  him  to  keep  clean  with  half  a  day  of  play 
engagements  before  him  is  to  do  him  an  injustice. 

Long  before  a  child  ought  to  be  conscious  of  his  clothes, 
other  children,  prematurely  instructed,  take  notice  if  his 
apparel  seems  to  them  unsuitable.  Among  little  girls 
especially,  clothes-snobbery  is  very  vigorous,  and  the 
child  who  is  dressed  shabbily,  out  of  fashion  or  in  bad 
taste  is  well-nigh  ostracized. 

The  mother  who  has  bad  taste  seldom  is  aware  of  it, 
but  the  mother  who  wants  her  children  clothed  quietly 
and  modestly  sometimes  needs  to  instruct  her  children 
very  patiently  and  even  organize  with  other  sensible 
women  in  order  to  resist  the  modern  tendency  to  over- 
dress growing  girls. 

There  finally  comes  a  time  to  the  most  slovenly  boy  or 
girl  when  clothes  become  a  concern  and  when  the  desire  of 
choice  and  the  sense  of  personal  possession  of  them  are 
keen.  Since,  as  we  have  been  told,  the  consciousness  of 
being  well  dressed  gives  a  peace  not  surpassed  even  by 
the  consolations  of  religion,  it  is  desirable  that  young 
people  should  be  clothed  in  a  way  that  shall  so  satisfy 
them  that  they  may  so  far  as  possible  forget  how  they 
look  and  thus  be  neither  vain  nor  self-conscious.  To 
give  youths  a  larger  measure  of  choice  in  their  garments  and 
to  teach  boys  by  their  allowances  and  girls  through  the 
technique  of  dressmaking  about  weaves,  colors,  styles  and 
costs  is  to  do  a  service  to  their  comfort,  reasonable  pride 
and  moral  satisfaction. 

Other  Bodily  Phases 

These  need  hardly  be  more  than  mentioned.  Eye- 
strain, adenoids,  spinal  curvature,  improper  sex  habits  of 
act  or  thought,  tell  of  a  deadened  spirit.  These  are  often 
present  when  parents  have  no  suspicion  of  the  fact 
Therefore,  physical  examinations  should  be  had  of  all 
children,  whether  they  appear  to  be  sick  or  not.  A 
thoughtful  student  of  childhood  is  bound  to  support  the 
medical  supervision  of  schools  and  to  advocate  general 


BODY  AND   CHARACTER  43 

medical  supervision  of  homes.  We  must  stand  in  line 
with  those  who  recognize  that  perhaps  the  great  future  of 
medicine  is  in  the  field  of  prevention. 

It  is  beautiful  to  note  how  even  the  young  victim  of 
disease,  vexed  by  these  rebel  powers  that  him  array,  will 
develop  the  Christian  virtues  of  patience  and  resignation, 
but  a  miserly  body  cannot  any  more  than  a  miserly  soul 
enter  into  the  fulness  of  a  human  experience. 

Temptations  of  Our  Age 

But  the  right  regulation  of  the  body  is  apt  to  be  per- 
verted in  other  ways.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  new 
renaissance  of  taste  and  beauty.  Our  hitherto  austere 
civilization  has  taken  possession  of  the  material  means  for 
making  them  the  property  of  all.  We  have  the  tempta- 
tion to  develop  magnificent  physiques  as  tools  for  sensual 
or  aesthetic  pleasure,  to  stimulate  the  passions  through 
art  and  dress  and  social  pleasures,  to  use  our  wealth  in 
uncreative  and  time-wasting  sports  and  games.  It  all 
becomes  a  refined  way  of  saying,  "  Eat,  drink  and  be  merry, 
for  tomorrow  we  die." 

This  renaissance  of  bodily  pleasures  is  peculiarly  danger- 
ous to  the  young.  The  glories  awarded  by  the  newspaper 
press  even  to  high  school  athletes  would  turn  the  heads 
of  anchorites.  A  life  set  to  the  pace  of  the  automobile, 
to  the  time  of  the  dance  and  the  exhilaration  of  football 
and  the  hunt  does  not  easily  plod  on  the  ways  of  duty, 
sanity  and  service.  It  is  hard  for  warm-blooded,  virile 
and  passionate  youth  to  live  chastely  in  a  perfumed, 
sensual  and  even  degenerate  atmosphere.  A  social  at- 
mosphere in  which  men  of  middle  age  can  play  with 
comparative  safety  is  maddening  or  deadening  to  high 
school  boys  and  girls. 

To  young  people  who  leave  school  in  order  to  go  to  work 
there  are  today  peculiar  physical  temptations.  Early 
apprenticeship  brings  the  young  into  direct  contact  with 
the  vices  of  older  employees.  The  saloon  and  other  com- 
mercialized places  of  pleasure  are  the  only  places  for 
social  resort  when    homes  are   cramped  and  cheerless. 


44         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

The  blind-alley  occupations  give  those  who  folkw  them 
opportunity  only  for  indulgences  that  are  deadening  to 
Sty   and   discouragement.     These  errors  the  young 
who  have  drifted  into  such  occupations  because  of  lack 
of  capacity  or  initiative,  possess  smaller  P0/^^^, 
Fortunately,  we  have  antidotes  at  hand.     Our  school 
athletics,  when  thoroughly  supervised,  develop  the ^hardier 
virtues.     The    Boy    Scouts,    the    Campfire    Girls     the 
Y    M    C    A.,  public  and  private  summer  camps,  worK- 
schools  like  Abbotsholme  and  Interlaken,  the  discipline 
of  serious  and  worth-while  business  training,  the  adventure- 
callings  such  as  that  of  engineering  or  the  national ^con- 
servation service,  whatever  makes  life  nobly  difficult  and 
bmve    works  toward  self-controlled  and  virtuous  living. 
Even  among  the  less  fortunate  the  public  playgrounds, 
The  weU-conducted  trolley  parks,  amateur  athletic  leagues, 
the  social  settlements,  etc.,  are  broadening  their  whole- 
some influence.     There  is  a  notable  increase  throughout 
our  whole  social  life  of  a  spirit  which,  in  formal  and  in- 
formal education  alike,  tends  toward  the  Greek  idea  of 
the  sound  mind  in  the  sound  body. 
Temperance 
The  recent  rapid  spread  of  prohibition  of  the  public 
sale  of  intoxicants  in  America  has  no  doubt  donea  great 
Wee  to  the  young,  especially  in  f^t^^use 
and  in  making  the  acquisition   of   the   habit   less   eas^ 
^inre  real  temperance  is  an  inner  and  not  an  outer  state, 
Staking  command  by  the  spirit  of  the  bodily  passions 
and  emotions,  we  are  by  no  means  at  the  end  of  our 
necessity  to  plead  for  the  development  of  this  virtue 

Many7  people  believe  that  the  temperate  man  is  a  finer 
spectacle  than  the  abstinent  one,  as  he  who  can  use  wisely 
all  the Tools  and  means  of  life  is  greater  than  he  who  dares 
not  try  to  command  them.  There  may  also  be  some 
truth  in  Dr.  Hugo  Munsterberg's  argument  that  human 
nTture  feels  both  the  desire  and  the  need  for  exalted  mo- 
ments and  that  there  is  not  an  essential  difference  between 
the  nature  of  the  person  who  follows  up  religious  revivals, 


BODY  AND   CHARACTER  45 

the  college  student  who  yells  at  a  football  game,  the 
woman  who  cries  at  a  sentimental  play  and  the  iceman 
who  gets  drunk.  They  all  desire  to  break  loose,  to  feel 
strongly,  to  be  ecstatic,  and  they  all  do  so  for  the  sake  of 
personal  sensations.  How  shall  we  meet  and  govern  these 
tendencies  to  emotional  overflow  which  drive  the  man 
deprived  of  drink  to  drugs  and  the  godly  woman  who  will 
not  drink  wine  to  her  tea-caddy  and  her  patent-medicine 
chest  ? 

The  answer  seems  to  be,  especially  in  the  case  of  young 
people,  to  displace  the  self-indulgent  emotions  by  great, 
unselfish  interests;  strong,  humanitarian  motives;  noble 
physical,  mental  and  spiritual  ideals.  Occasionally,  the 
high  school  athlete  breaks  training  after  the  football 
season,  but  on  the  whole,  the  tendency  of  the  influence  of 
school  sports  and  school  gymnastics  is  overwhelmingly 
in  the  direction  of  a  bodily  ideal  that  precludes  drunken- 
ness. The  young  person  who  has  formed  his  life  purpose 
with  enthusiasm  has  in  these  strenuous  days  little  time 
for  self-indulgence.  Especially  will  ideals  of  the  sacredness 
of  the  body,  the  recognition  of  it  as  the  temple  of  the  spirit, 
solve  the  problem  of  self-mastery. 

We  have  no  hesitation  either  in  asserting  strongly  that 
the  doctrine  of  total  abstinence  is  the  only  one  which  we 
can  wisely  preach  to  the  young.  The  psycho-physiological 
laboratories  have  told  us  that  the  margin  between  the 
harmless  and  the  harmful  use  of  alcohol  is  so  narrow  and 
undetermined  in  the  case  of  the  individual  and  its  influ- 
ence in  breaking  down  the  power  of  inhibition  is  so  insidi- 
ous that  the  use  of  stimulants  ought  never  to  be  advised 
except  by  a  specialist  who  knows  the  individual's  char- 
acter and  needs  thoroughly,  and  even  then  must  be 
largely  a  matter  of  personal  responsibility.  Daily  life  in 
our  invigorating  climate  is  itself,  as  Josiah  Strong  pointed 
out  a  number  of  years  ago,  so  stimulating  that  our  nation 
seems  to  be  wise  in  moving  toward  the  position  of  an 
abstinent  people. 

We  are  far  beyond  the  position  that  total  abstinence  is 
merely  a  moral  safeguard  to  the  weak.     The  researches  of 


46         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Kraepelin  and  others  have  convinced  us  that  alcohol  has 
no  place  in  the  daily  life  of  the  normal  individual.  Before 
the  Great  War  broke  out  in  Europe,  the  authoritative 
German  attitude  was  rapidly  coming  to  assume  this  posi- 
tion. Nothing  was  more  impressive  during  the  early 
months  of  that  war  than  to  see  how  one  nation  after  an- 
other fell  into  line  behind  Germany  in  the  elimination  of 
alcohol  from  the  life  of  the  people.  The  challenge  which 
that  terrible  contest  made  of  the  mental  and  physical 
efficiency  of  men  was  only  to  be  met  by  total  abstinence. 

Reading  References 

There  are  many  excellent  books  upon  the  physical  care  of  children. 
Perhaps  the  two  most  useful  are  Griffith:  "  Care  of  the  Baby,"  and 
Oppenheim:  "  Care  of  the  Child  in  Health."  Tvler:  "  Growth  and 
Education,"  242-260,  and  Gesell:  "  The  Normal  Child  and  Primary  Edu- 
cation," 273-288,  discuss  thoroughly  the  relation  between  physical  health 
and  development  in  school.  Kirkpatrick:  "  Fundamentals  in  Child 
Study,"  II  and  XVII,  mentions  the  most  common  abnormalities  in  the 
development  of  childhood. 

A  summary  of  the  latest  word  upon  medical  inspection  and  supervision 
of  children  is  in  Mangold:  "  Problems  of  Child  Welfare,"  119-150. 

Kraepelin 's  study  of  the  influence  of  alcohol  upon  the  human  system  is 
found  in  his  "  Clinical  Psychiatry,"  passim. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE   FORCES  THAT  MAKE  A  MAN 

It  goes  without  saying  that  no  one  is  likely  to  be  a  very 
efficient  parent  or  teacher  unless  he  has  a  definite  aim  in 
the  training  of  children.  To  do  the  conventional  things 
with  them  will  constitute  the  work  and  the  results  of  an 
artisan,  but  to  be  an  artist  in  life-making  and  to  win  results 
commensurate  with  the  finest  of  arts,  we  must  have  the 
artist's  vision.  Neither  is  a  partial  view  of  the  purposes 
of  education  enough.  To  wish  that  a  child  should  keep 
his  health,  make  a  respectable  appearance,  have  pre- 
sentable manners,  make  a  good  living  and  keep  the  laws 
is  to  mistake  results  for  motives.  Even  to  visualize  the 
ideal  by  wishing  that  a  boy  might  turn  out  to  be  like  his 
father  or  some  other  good  and  successful  man  is  to  frame 
a  pattern  which  may  not  at  all  fit  this  individual  child's 
nature  or  possibilities. 

But  what  more  can  we  do  ?  Is  it  safe  to  shape  an  ideal 
for  a  child  of  unknown  capacities  and  possibilities?  We 
talk  about  bringing  up  a  child  the  way  he  should  go,  but 
who  knows  what  way  he  should  go?  Each  child  is  an 
experiment,  "  a  fresh  attempt  to  produce  the  just  man 
made  perfect."  Bernard  Shaw  may  not  be  an  infallible 
guide  in  child  training,  but  we  can  see  some  justice 
in  his  statement  that  "  if  you  begin  with  the  child's 
own  holiest  aspirations  and  suborn  them  for  your  own 
purposes,  there  is  hardly  any  limit  to  the  mischief  you 
may  do."  There  are  limits  to  such  mischief,  for  even  if 
you  insist  on  your  ideal  and  force  it  stubbornly  and  con- 
stantly with  a  child,  the  man  who  results  will  be  decidedly 
different  from  the  one  you  planned.  The  child  is  a  de- 
veloping personality,  and  your  task  is  that  of  helping  a 
free,  full  and  generous  unfoldment. 

The  author  believes  that  a  very  helpful  approach  to 

47 


48         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

this  subject  is  that  of  Prof.  H.  H.  Home  in  his  "  Idealism 
in  Education,"  where  he  names  three  universal  forces  that 
make  men,  —  heredity,  environment  and  will.  If  through 
education  in  the  home  and  elsewhere  we  can  bring  these 
forces  to  their  highest,  then  we  are  making  the  man  we 
would  have  to  be.  As  Home  says:  "  Heredity  bestows 
capacity.  Environment  provides  opportunity.  Will,  by 
effort,  realizes  the  inherited  capacity  and  utilizes  the 
environing  opportunity." 

'  The  child  is  born  in  part,  he  is  made  in  part,  in  part 
he  makes  himself." 

Wme  would  do  well  to  try  to  find  what  forces  are  native 
in  the  child,  and  ask  ourselves,  not  how  to  push  a  set  of 
buttons  that  will  bring  the  responses  we  desire,  but  how 
to  play  chords  that  will  bring  out  all  the  music  that  is 
latent  in  the  nature  of  the  child.  The  analogy  is  inade- 
quate, for  if  the  child  from  the  viewpoint  of  environment 
is  an  instrument  to  be  played  upon,  from  the  viewpoint  of 
will  he  is  the  player  himself  who  is  to  bring  out  his  own 
music. 

Heredity 

By  heredity  we  mean  the  characteristics  which  are 
transmitted  at  birth  from  parents  to  offspring.  This 
includes  what  comes  from  distant  as  well  as  immediate 
ancestors.  We  do  not  know  as  much  as  we  could  wish 
about  racial  heredity.  We  do  know  that  the  material 
furnished  to  education  in  the  shape  of  negro  children  is 
not  the  same  as  that  furnished  by  the  Filipinos.  We 
realize  that  the  material  furnished  by  brown  and  by  white 
children  is  not  the  same,  but  we  do  not  yet  know  what  all 
the  differences  and  capacities  are. 

We  know  a  little  more  about  immediate  heredity. 
"  Children,"  as  Thorndike  tells  us,  "  '  take  after  '  their 
parents  in  energy,  ability  to  learn,  and  other  original 
mental  traits  to  approximately  the  same  extent  as  they 
do  in  form,  features  or  other  original  physical  traits." 
If  we  take  two  brothers,  who  have,  of  course,  the  same 
heredity,  "  one  can  apparently  prophesy  about  as  much 


FORCES  THAT   MAKE  A   MAN  49 

concerning  a  pupil's  rank  in  college  from  the  rank  his 
elder  brother  had  in  college  as  from  his  own  rank  in  en- 
trance examinations." 

But  here  we  come  to  the  unexpected  and  perhaps  at 
first  discouraging  fact  that  the  improvements  made  in 
intellect,  character  and  skill  by  one  generation  are  not, 
so  far  as  we  have  evidence,  transmissible  to  the  next 
generation  by  heredity.  On  the  other  hand,  "  the  evi- 
dence is  all  against  the  theory  that  the  special  knowledge, 
interests,  habits,  skill,  or  morals  which  a  human  being 
acquires  during  life  will  alter  his  germs  so  that  the  children 
developing  therefrom  will  be  any  the  more  likely  to  possess 
or  acquire  that  special  knowledge,  interest,  habit  or  skill." 
Further,  the  same  inability  to  transmit  through  heredity 
probably  holds  of  the  more  general  elements  of  human 
nature,  such  as  acquired  courage,  persistence,  accuracy, 
truthfulness  or  kindness.  (For  hereditary  racial,  but 
not  immediate  personal,  improvement  by  education  in 
general  health  and  vigor  there  is  some  hope.)  But  if 
Nature  is  not  friendly,  she  is  at  least  impartial.  If  a 
satyr  cannot  breed  a  saint,  neither  can  a  drunkard  repro- 
duce his  kind  by  heredity.  Except  for  certain  racial 
physical  poisons,  which  are  transmissible  by  infection,  the 
child  starts  with  the  same  kinds  of  capital  that  his  parents 
started  with.  Long  before  they  made  their  individual 
mistakes,  indeed  long  before  they  were  born,  the  germ- 
cells  that  later  were  to  produce  their  children  were  set  off 
apart. 

If  this  be  true,  if  such  bounds  be  set  to  a  child  at  the 
start,  then  what  is  the  use  of  hopes  and  endeavors  in  his 
behalf  ?     There  is  much. 

In  the  first  place,  we  can  predetermine  to  a  great  extent 
the  variety  and  richness  of  a  child's  inheritance  by  wise 
choices  in  marriage.  If  at  least  half  of  a  child's  inherited 
characteristics,  as  is  believed,  come  from  his  father  and 
mother  rather  than  from  his  remoter  ancestors,  then 
these  two  have  much  to  say  about  what  their  child  shall 
be.  The  marriage  of  two  persons  of  large  capacity  tends 
to  produce  children  of  varied  capacity,  of  versatile  talents. 


50         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  marriage  of  two  weaknesses, 
particularly  of  two  similar  weaknesses,  is  likely  to  pro- 
duce an  accentuated  weakness  in  the  children.  This  fate- 
ful and  beneficent  law  of  heredity  but  emphasizes  the 
Christian  duty  of  wise  and  reasonable  choice  of  life  part- 
ners. We  are  not  responsible  for  all  that  we  have  received 
from  our  ancestry,  but  we  are  responsible  for  what  we 
hand  down  through  the  gates  of  birth.  We  can  fulfil 
many  of  our  hopes  for  children  who  shall  come  after  us 
by  marriages  in  which  mutual  health,  clean  blood,  re- 
ciprocal talents,  shall  make  a  strong,  wise  and  good 
progeny  possible. 

But  after  children  are  born  they  are  by  no  means  fated 
as  to  character,  for  they  have  many  possibilities,  within 
the  limits  of  their  capacity.  They  inherit  tendencies, 
not  character.  But  these  tendencies  are  general,  not 
specific.  There  is  no  adequate  evidence  that  a  tendency 
toward  an  appetite  for  strong  drink  is  hereditary.  But  a 
child  may  inherit  a  constitutional  weakness  that  makes 
him  easy-going,  a  follower  of  the  crowd,  one  who  becomes 
easily  discouraged.  In  unfavorable  circumstances  any 
of  these  tendencies  might  lead  to  the  use  of  and  an  acquired 
appetite  for  drink. 

A  child  who  inherits  a  dangerous  tendency  from  one 
parent  may  inherit  a  compensating  tendency  from  the 
other.  He  inherits,  too,  from  the  distant  past,  and  a 
surprisingly  encouraging  tendency  may  crop  out  from  a 
remote  ancestor,  jumping  the  generations.  A  revealed 
capacity,  nevertheless,  does  not  alone  guarantee  an 
achievement.  The  capacity  for  music  does  not  itself, 
without  lessons,  make  a  musician.  Some  parents  in  their 
desire  to  develop  well-rounded  children  may  actually 
neglect  signs  of  genius  while  rubbing  away  at  some  place 
where  the  child  can  never  by  any  possibility  take  on  a 
polish.  The  impression  that  there  must  be  virtue  in  a 
study  simply  because  a  child  hates  it  has  no  other  basis 
than  that  obstacles  overcome  give  strength,  but  are  there 
not  obstacles  enough  in  the  way  of  full  mastery  of  a  pre- 
ferred subject  without  leading  the  child  to  waste  his  time 


FORCES  THAT  MAKE  A  MAN  51 

in  conquering  those  in  a  field  where  he  cannot  possibly 
excel?  We  can  never  take  for  granted  a  child's  inherit- 
ance— we  must  set  out  to  discover  it.  While  he  has 
limitations,  we  do  not  know  yet  what  they  are.  He  may 
develop  slowly  and  not  show  all  that  is  in  him  until  very 
late.  An  educator  who  had  started  to  train  the  boy 
Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  basis  of  his  near  and  obvious 
heredity  might  easily  have  lost  heart  long  before  his 
concealed  capacity  appeared. 

Each  child  must  be  studied  by  himself  until  the  life- 
plan  of  his  soul  in  some  measure  appears  to  view.  As 
fast  as  his  instincts  develop,  his  temperament  manifests 
itself,  and  the  strength  of  his  constitution  is  measured, 
we  may  draw  out  to  the  fullest  his  nascent  abilities. 
Adolescence  is  particularly  the  time  when  a  full  heredity 
displays  itself.  A  youth  who  has  hitherto  resembled  his 
mother  may  now  reveal  that  he  has  "  taken  after  "  his 
father  or  his  father's  kindred.  So  that  the  latest  days 
are  often  those  of  greatest  opportunity. 

Environment 

Give  almost  any  neglected  child  a  good  home  and  he 
will  become  a  good  man.  He  has  opportunity  for  his 
capacity. 

Environment,  like  heredity,  is  something  of  which  the 
child  is  the  recipient.  He  is  helpless  to  choose  either. 
But  environment  is  unlike  heredity  in  that  the  parents 
may  choose  and  furnish  it  for  the  child.  We  may  not 
enlarge  his  capacity,  but  we  can  enlarge  his  opportunity. 

The  child  of  genius  may  rise  above  his  environment, 
but  we  more  often  see  the  average  child  raised  by  his 
environment  above  the  average.  This  factor  which  we 
may  ourselves  effect  affords  the  greatest  hope  to  humanity. 
A  good  environment  is  like  a  nest  in  which  otherwise  dor- 
mant heredities  come  to  life  and  activity.  It  has  so  great 
a  place  in  the  shaping  of  character  that  Home  tells  us  that 
the  supreme  duty  is,  "  Put  into  the  environment  what  you 
want  in  the  man." 

Is  it  not  inspiring  to  think  that  by  enriching  the  home 


52         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

atmosphere,  not  by  great  expenditures,  but  through  many 
homely  but  inspiring  stimuli,  a  parent  may  bring  out 
hereditary  powers  that  would  otherwise  never  awaken? 

So  when  you  ask  what  you  want  your  child  to  become 
you  ought  in  the  same  breath  to  ask,  Have  I  in  myself  and 
in  my  home  what  I  want  my  child  to  become?  You  can 
send  your  child  out  to  take  music  lessons,  but  he  is  not 
likely  to  become  a  musical  child  unless  you  have  music  in 
your  home.  You  can  let  him  go  into  society,  but  he  will 
not  have  the  social  graces  unless  he  has  learned  them  at 
home.  If  he  is  to  have  good  taste,  he  must  see  it  at  home. 
And  he  cannot  easily  become  religious  unless  he  learns 
religion  in  the  home. 

Will 

vSo  far  we  have  left  out  the  child  himself.  We  have 
thought  of  him  as  being  acted  upon,  now  we  must  think 
of  him  as  actor.  A  special  chapter  is  to  be  given  to  the 
subject  of  will  training.  Here  we  simply  wish  to  empha- 
size the  importance  of  the  will  as  a  force  in  making  the 
child  the  man  we  would  have  him  be. 

We  have  seen  already  that  our  own  wills  have  a  very 
large  place  in  the  making  of  our  child.  Our  will  in  the 
choice  of  a  mate  set  the  seal  of  a  special  heredity  upon 
the  child.  Our  will  in  making  his  environment  determines 
what  opportunity  he  shall  have  for  his  capacity.  But  the 
child's  own  will  affects  both  heredity  and  environment. 
In  a  sense,  a  child  chooses  his  heredity,  for  while  he  may 
not  choose  any  other  than  his  own,  he  may  choose  to 
neglect  or  improve  any  part  of  his  own.  He  may  select 
his  noblest  capacities  and  let  his  ignoble  ones  lie  dormant, 
thus  turning  capacity  into  character.  So  one  chooses  his 
environment  by  making  the  largest  use  of  his  opportuni- 
ties and  ignoring  those  that  would  degrade  him.  Within 
the  limit  of  his  capacity  a  man  may  become  what  he  will, 
and  he  never  can  know  what  his  full  capacity  is.  So  far 
as  he  selects  his  environment  he  may  tend  to  become  what 
he  will,  and  every  struggle  betters  his  environment. 

So  when  we  are  asked  what  we  want  our  child  to 


FORCES  THAT  MAKE  A  MAN  53 

become,  we  can  at  any  given  time  only  say  that  we  want 
him  to  be  all  that  his  capacities  and  opportunities  and  will 
permit  and  that  we  are  trying  to  find  out  what  his  limits 
are  in  these  three  directions  and  to  help  him  to  reach 
them.  This  answer  leads  us  back  among  the  common- 
places. The  instincts  must  have  play,  because  they  are 
the  expression  of  his  race  inheritance,  and  the  feelings 
because  they  are  his  response  to  his  environment  and  the 
motive  power  of  his  conduct.  The  sense  perceptions 
should  be  trained  because  they  are  the  child's  doors  of 
access  to  his  environment,  and  the  muscles,  because  they 
are  his  means  of  self -training  and  of  mastering  his  environ- 
ment. Memory  must  be  exercised  since  it  fills  the 
mind's  treasure  house  from  his  social  environment,  but 
the  ability  to  think  must  equally  be  exercised  because 
otherwise  the  child  cannot  use  what  he  remembers  and 
cannot  add  to  his  knowledge.  The  conscience  must  be 
awakened  to  know  what  is  right,  and  the  will,  to  do  what 
is  right. 

After  we  have  done  all  we  can  to  enlarge  and  modify 
the  growing  child,  we  shall  find  that  he  has  a  resisting 
power  to  much  of  our  endeavor.  Here  he  has  no  capacity 
to  answer  our  training;  there  he  is  deaf  to  the  environ- 
ment that  we  offer ;  yonder  his  will  does  not  respond  to  our 
encouragement.  But  this  may  mean  that  he  is  not  yet 
ready,  and  may  yet  come  to  his  own  after  we  have  ceased 
our  endeavors,  or  that  he  is  to  remain  weak  here  only  to 
develop  his  great  strength  elsewhere,  or  that  some  treas- 
ures are  forever  to  remain  unsought,  some  music  forever 
unsung.  His  thwarting  of  our  effort  may  even  work  to 
his  own  good.  Partly  we  may  shape  him,  partly  he  must 
make  himself.  During  childhood  the  former  is  more 
noticeably  true;  during  youth  the  latter  becomes  the 
fateful  fact. 

And  it  is  in  the  home  that  the  three  man-making  forces 
that  may  make  the  child  what  we  wish  must  chiefly 
operate,  for  the  home,  as  Home  reminds  us,  is  the  only 
institution  that  has  legitimate  control  of  the  element  of 
heredity,  it  furnishes  the  environment  during  the  most 


54         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

susceptible  years,  and  the  habits  fashioned  in  youth  in 
the  home  make  the  materials  out  of  which  the  will  shapes 
its  enduring  choices. 

Reading  References 

There  is  a  brief  but  helpful  discussion  of  human  heredity  in  Thorndike: 
"  Education,"  69,  205-212.  A  practical  article  in  Monroe:  "  Cyclopedia 
of  Education  "  is  under  the  word  "  Heredity,"  and  our  most  authoritative 
discussion  is  in  Thompson:  "  Heredity." 

Bolton:  "  Principles  of  Education,"  183-230,  is  most  helpful  in  sug- 
gesting what  education  may  do  to  modify  heredity.  Kirkpatrick :  "  Fun- 
damentals of  Child  Training,"  XV,  covers  much  the  same  ground.  Hender- 
son: "  What  Is  It  to  be  Educated?  "  373-420,  has  a  special  chapter  upon  the 
relation  of  the  will  to  the  development  of  the  individual.  Home:  "  Ideal- 
ism in  Education,"  takes  much  the  same  standpoint  throughout  his 
discussion  as  is  maintained  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

TRAINING  CHILDREN  TO  OBSERVE  AND 
DISCRIMINATE 

Note  the  double  suggestion  in  the  title  of  this  chapter. 
It  is  not  enough  to  teach  children  to  observe.  In  such 
training  we  should  start  from  the  worth-whileness  of 
objects.  We  do  not  wish  to  make  children  more  keen  in 
the  observation  of  that  which  is  not  worth  while.  Note 
also  that  the  title  is  not  Sense  Training.  That  fre- 
quently used  phrase  is  a  misnomer.  The  senses  them- 
selves are  treated  by  the  oculist,  the  aurist  and  other 
specialists.  We  who  are  parents  train  their  use  as  organs 
of  the  mind.  Our  function  is,  as  Home  says,  "  to  open 
the  windows  of  consciousness." 

Why 

There  are  several  reasons  why  we  should  attempt  this. 

One  is  their  importance.  "  Sensations  are  the  stuff 
out  of  which  knowledge  of  the  external  world  grows," 
says  Home.  We  really  know  nothing  of  the  external 
world  which  our  senses  have  not  brought  to  us.  The 
world  admires  so  keenly  the  achievements  of  Helen  Keller 
that  the  writer  was  recently  surprised  to  hear  a  well- 
known  psychologist  speak  of  her  asa"  defective."  Then 
he  went  on  to  prove  the  point  by  showing  that  much  of 
her  apparent  knowledge  of  our  world  of  sounds,  colors 
and  speech  is  evidently  hearsay  and  pointed  out  the  lack 
of  intelligent  reference  other  than  conventional,  in  her 
writings,  to  many  of  the  phases  of  nature  most  obvious  to 
all  who  can  see  and  hear.  Miss  Keller's  world  is  chiefly 
the  world  of  touch,  since  this  sense  is  the  only  one  that 
has  brought  her  actual  knowledge. 

Another  reason  for  training  in  observation  is  the  richer 
knowledge  and  intelligence  that  are  thereby  made  possi- 

55 


56         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

ble.  Miss  Edgeworth's  old  story  of  "  Eyes  and  No  Eyes  " 
is  the  classic  often  cited  to  show  how  it  is  possible  for  two 
persons  to  traverse  the  same  landscape  together,  one  ab- 
sorbing practically  nothing,  the  other  returning  enthusi- 
astic because  of  an  enriched  experience.  The  writings  of 
some  of  our  popular  naturalists  who  have  confined  their 
essays  to  their  sense-impressions  encourage  us  to  find  in 
the  wildwoods  near  us  and  even  in  the  grass  beneath  our 
feet  unseen  marvels.  Children  are  by  nature  sensitive 
only  to  a  few  bright  colors,  to  general  outlines  and  to  the 
more  striking  phenomena.  While  a  new  sensitiveness  to 
these  awakens  in  adolescence,  amounting  to  the  recognition 
of  an  actual  deepening  in  the  colors  of  nature  and  a  vivify- 
ing of  its  forces,  this  poetic  spirit,  which  is  evanescent, 
is  best  reinforced  by  the  habit  from  early  childhood  of 
calling  to  the  attention  of  children  the  softer  color  effects 
of  sky,  leaves  and  shadows,  graceful  outlines  of  plants 
and  trees,  and  the  smaller  doings  in  the  natural  world. 
This  leads  to  a  certain  expectancy  and  wide-awakeness 
which  are  beautiful  life-habits.  These  are  indispensable 
to  creators  in  all  the  arts,  but  they  are  also  a  blessing  to 
those  whom  Robert  Haven  Schauffler  calls  "  geniuses  by 
proxy,"  appreciative  listeners  and  lookers-on.  For  it  is 
only  the  people  who  observe  this  world  who  really  possess 
it. 

In  certain  objective  sciences,  a  trained  observation  is 
absolutely  necessary,  and  early  training  of  this  sort  may 
not  only  develop  a  broader  taste  including  these  sciences, 
but  is  also  a  great  assistance  in  mastering  them.  Perhaps 
the  "  genius  "  who  is  such  because  he  is  a  rare  interpreter 
of  the  facts  of  earth  is  sometimes  made  so  by  parents  who 
have  early  helped  him  to  the  seeing  eye.  At  least,  we 
know  that  from  parents  with  such  trained  powers,  the 
leaders  in  natural  science  have  often  sprung. 

But  in  what  way  is  a  person  who  does  not  use  his 
senses  more  fortunate  than  Helen  Keller?  If  he  be  not 
actually  in  possession  of  all  his  powers  is  he,  too,  not  a 
defective  ? 


TRAINING  CHILDREN   TO   OBSERVE  57 

How 

First,  it  is  necessary,  from  time  to  time,  to  be  assured 
that  the  child's  sense-organs  are  in  normal  condition. 
The  specialist  can  correct  some  defects  and  prevent  others. 
Near-sightedness  is  very  common.  Color  blindness, 
which  cannot  be  cured  in  one  generation,  is  a  defect  that 
ought  at  least  to  be  recognized.  Adenoids  deaden  sight 
and  hearing,  and  catarrh  threatens  hearing,  smell  and 
taste.  Some  of  the  early  infectious  diseases  threaten  the 
hearing.  Deafness  isolates  socially  as  truly  as  blindness 
does  personally.  Some  of  these  defects  appear  suddenly 
and  some  late.  They  are  becoming  so  common  that  it 
seems  almost  as  necessary  to  have  periodical  examinations 
made  by  the  oculist  as  by  the  dentist.  In  utilizing  the 
important  aid  afforded  by  motion  pictures  toward  per- 
ception by  the  eyes,  we  must  avoid  eye-strain. 

Second,  training  in  sense  perception  ought  to  begin 
very  early.  Mothers  are  finding  it  wise  to  show  children 
bright  colors  and  play  them  soft  melodies  almost  in  the 
cradle.  Madame  Montessori  has  caught  the  world's  at- 
tention by  her  ingenious  devices  for  such  training.  Work- 
ing upon  foundations  laid  by  others,  she  has  arranged  a 
series  of  objects  by  which  children  not  only  exercise  eye 
and  hand  to  discriminate  color  and  shape,  size  and  smooth- 
ness, but  test  the  thermal  sense  (of  heat  and  cold),  train 
themselves  in  handling  and  carrying,  and  enjoy  the  muscu- 
lar sense  in  arranging  and  constructing.  Doing  this  in 
an  atmosphere  of  unusual  freedom  and  of  social  friendli- 
ness, they  work  in  the  spirit  of  play  and  reach  some 
surprising  results.  A  mother  can  not  only  use  the  Montes- 
sori method  in  the  nursery,  but  she  can  devise  materials 
of  her  own,  inexpensively  and  fully  as  effective  because 
made  out  of  homely  objects  and  attached  to  household 
duties.  The  child,  for  example,  will  enjoy  learning  to 
button  the  baby's  dress  more  than  to  use  Montessori 's 
famous  buttoning  frame. 

Our  best  kindergartens  have  by  no  means  neglected 
sensory  methods.  They  are  less  confident  than  is  Montes- 
sori that  skill  in  handling  formal  apparatus  can  be  trans- 


58         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

ferred  over  into  skill  in  handling  tools  or  materials  of 
work  and  play.  With  gratitude,  however,  our  most 
broad-minded  kindergartners  are  recognizing  the  stimu- 
lation which  Montessori  has  given  to  this  important 
matter  of  seeing  not  only  that  materials  do  exist  which 
will  train  the  child's  sense  perception,  but  that  they  are 
sought  out  and  constantly  used.  The  kindergarten  is 
equipped  to  do  this  and  to  do  more.  For  emphasis  upon 
activity  rather  than  upon  sensation  should  furnish  us 
opportunity  to  send  the  child,  both  at  home  and  in  the 
kindergarten,  in  search  of  larger  sense  expression. 

Third,  the  home  should  be  provided  with  considerable 
sense-apparatus.  We  have  already  spoken  of  materials 
which  an  ingenious  mother  can  gather,  imitative  of  the 
Montessori  apparatus.  Of  course,  everything  in  the 
house  makes  some  sensory  appeal.  The  thing  to  do  is  to 
plan  that  they  make  an  effective  appeal  to  children.  Wall 
papers,  for  example,  should  either  be  cheerful  in  tone  or 
else  neutral  so  as  to  display  bright  pictures,  which,  in  the 
nursery  particularly,  should  be  hung  low  where  the  chil- 
dren can  see  and  study  them,  and  which  should  be  fre- 
quently changed.  Toys  should  be  few  and  large  and 
largely  home-made.  '  The  best  toy,"  as  Sisson  states, 
"  is  the  one  that  gives  the  child  the  most  work  to  do," 
that  is,  that  exercises  his  senses  most  in  putting  together, 
building  and  using.  Nature's  own  playthings,  sand  and 
water  and  clay,  sticks  and  blocks,  caves  and  tent-like 
shelters,  constitute  the  most  educative  implements 
possible. 

Fourth,  we  should,  whenever  possible,  use  sensory 
methods.  Some  one  has  said  that  there  is  too  much 
"  book  and  talk  "  in  the  schools.  So  is  there  in  our  homes. 
We  describe  objects  or  send  our  children  to  books  to  read 
about  them  when  we  might  better  show  them  the  objects 
themselves.  When  you  note  the  keen  delight  that  chil- 
dren take  in  grasping,  looking  over,  listening  to  or  taking 
apart  a  new  object  of  interest,  you  can  appreciate  how 
much  more  vivid,  accurate  and  lasting  are  the  impressions 
made    through    the     senses    than    through    second-hand 


TRAINING  CHILDREN  TO  OBSERVE  59 

accounts  of  them.  The  benefit  of  curio-shelves,  stamp 
collections,  nature  collections,  boys'  pockets  and  treasuries 
is  that  they  enlarge  the  number  of  objective  opportunities 
to  sharpen  the  sense  perceptions.  It  is  interesting  to 
watch  a  child  who  has  had  many  chances  to  perceive, 
experiment  and  reflect  go  up,  like  a  soldier  in  the  ranks, 
from  drill  to  mastery,  until  he  lives  in  a  world  of  "  a  num- 
ber of  things,"  which  Stevenson  says  should  make  us  as 
happy  as  kings. 

Let  us  also  defend  in  our  schools  the  enlarged  use  of 
laboratories,  manual  training,  stereopticons  and  motion 
pictures.  They  mean  the  fuller  possession  of  life  both 
by  our  children  and  those  of  other  people. 

Fifth,  let  us  remember  to  try  to  exercise  all  the  senses. 
We  are  likely  to  favor  the  eyes  and  the  ears  and  neglect 
the  touch  and  muscle  senses.  No  one  knows  yet  how 
much  larger  life  might  be  if  we  paid  more  attention  to  the 
senses  of  smell  and  taste.  To  go  through  the  verses  of  a 
favorite  poet  for  references  to  odor  might  reveal  how  fully 
or  how  poorly  his  soul  had  responded  to  the  symphonic 
odors  of  nature.  There  are  some  poets  whose  lines  fairly 
riot  in  color,  and  others,  like  Whitman  and  Swinburne, 
who  show  a  delighted  consciousness  of  the  tactile  sense  as 
it  is  affected  by  water,  sun  and  air.  These  indicate  some 
of  our  possibilities  in  training  our  children  to  multiply 
their  contacts  with  the  world  they  live  in. 

Finally,  let  us  try  to  appreciate  the  moral  relations  of 
sense  training.  To  train  to  artistic  performance  is  to  give 
a  feeling  of  liberation  and  leisure  for  strong,  effective 
living.  To  give  contact  enough  through  the  senses  with 
earth's  wonders  is  to  inspire  thoughtfulness.  Thus  the 
observant  soul  becomes  the  reverent  and  thankful  soul. 

A  Limitation 
After  all,  it  is  not  indiscriminate  training  of  sense  per- 
ception that  we  are  after,  but  rather  the  habit  of  perceiv- 
ing and  enjoying  certain  classes  of  things.  Some  sense 
training  is  useless  to  many  persons.  The  delicate  palate 
of  the  professional  tea-taster  is  needless  for  most.     Some 


60        CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

sense  training  is  even  unfortunate.  A  child  trained  to 
be  an  epicure  will  as  a  man  frequently  be  uncomfortable. 
We  may  train  a  child  to  enjoy  a  fine  day,  without  training 
him  to  be  miserable  on  rainy  days.  In  general,  the  mas- 
teries rather  than  the  repulsions  are  to  be  encouraged. 
We  can  at  once  think  of  classes  of  things  whose  perception 
and  enjoyment  may  be  and  should  be  encouraged  —  for  the 
taste,  a  variety  of  wholesome  foods  and  drinks;  for  the 
smell,  a  sensitive  appreciation  of  flowers  and  perfumes; 
for  the  hearing,  noble  harmonies ;  for  the  sight,  harmonies 
of  color,  landscapes,  painting  and  sculpture ;  for  the  touch, 
fineness  of  apprehension  and  exquisiteness  of  manipula- 
tion. 

Reading  References 

The  Montessori  system  is  most  helpfully  described  for  the  average 
mother  in  Canfield's  "  A  Montessori  Mother."  The  sanest  critiques  of 
the  system  are  found  in  a  little  book  of  Kirkpatrick's,  "  Montessori  System 
Examined,"  and  in  Gesell:  "  The  Normal  Child  and  Primary  Education," 
323-340.  In  the  same  book,  106-124,  is  a  very  strong  chapter  upon  sense 
training.  The  difference  between  Montessori  and  the  kindergarten  sys- 
tem in  respect  to  sense  training  is  impartially  studied  by  Elizabeth  Harri- 
son in  a  government  document  on  the  Montessori  system.  Forbush: 
"  Manual  of  Play,"  V  and  XV,  gives  a  fresh  discussion  of  play  for  the 
home  involving  sense  training. 


CHAPTER   IX 
HABIT-FORMING 

The  value  of  forming  good  habits  in  early  childhood  is 
evident.  Good  habits  are  the  accepted  ways  of  doing 
things.  In  any  good  habit  we  have  some  happy  race- 
experience,  of  which  the  child  is  permitted  to  avail  himself 
without  waiting  for  generations  to  acquire  it.  Good 
habits  include  the  most  facile  ways  of  doing,  the  most 
pleasant  ways  of  getting  along  with  other  people.  Once 
absorbed,  they  are  executed  involuntarily  and  leave  the 
mind  free  for  more  important  matters.  They  may  be 
extended  to  include  not  only  agreeable,  but  considerate 
and  even  generous  behavior.  If  honestly  adopted,  they 
create  moral  traditions  which  are  not  easy  to  disavow. 

The  limitations  of  habits  are  equally  obvious.  Bad 
habits  are  just  as  enchaining  as  good  ones,  and  persist  even 
after  the  will  is  aroused  against  them.  Bring  a  reformed 
man  back  into  the  scenes  of  his  debaucheries  and  he  is 
quite  likely  to  go  slipping  down  the  easy  channels  of  self- 
indulgence.  A  habit  that  has  been  the  agency  of  unselfish 
living  may,  if  released  from  its  original  motive,  become 
just  as  ugly  as  a  sin.  A  recent  novel  tells  the  story  of  a 
mother  and  sister  whose  thrift  had  been  a  means  in  re- 
claiming a  prodigal  son  and  brother,  but  after  the  young 
man  came  back  his  home  was  soon  unendurable  to  him 
because,  the  habit  of  thrift  having  become  fixed,  his 
mother  and  sister  were  now  mere  misers. 

Habit,  then,  has  its  important  place  in  enabling  the 
child  to  do  routine  and  mechanical  tasks  easily,  it  has  a 
large  place  in  making  a  certain  pre-emption  for  right  living, 
but  it  must  not  be  allowed  to  crush  the  initiative  or  to 
take  the  place  of  original  judgment  and  fresh  choices. 

There  is  no  one  period  of  habit-forming.  Our  personal 
habits  of  bodily  control,  carriage  and  manner  are  largely 

61 


62         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

formed  before  the  age  of  twenty.  Business  habits  and 
intellectual  habits  are  usually  formed  before  thirty  or 
thirty-five.  Habits  that  are  the  result  of  a  religious 
decision,  such  as  the  habit  of  prayer,  of  Bible  reading,  of 
Christian  observances  and  service,  have  been  known  to  be 
made  at  every  period  of  life,  but  they  are  usually  made 
before  maturity,  and  if  they  are  made  later  they  contend 
perpetually  against  a  mob  of  contrary  habits,  some  of 
which  persist  until  the  end  of  life.  Formation  is,  therefore, 
infinitely  easier  than  reformation. 

Essentials  to  Habit-Forming 

Simply  to  perform  a  given  act  many  times  regularly 
does  not  create  a  habit.  Dr.  E.  O.  Sisson  cites  by  way  of 
contrast  a  boy  who  goes  to  school  and  who  also  goes  to  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  gymnasium.  The  boy  goes  to  school  every 
day  in  the  week  but  two,  but  he  does  not  find  himself  in 
front  of  the  schoolhouse  door  on  Saturdays,  although  it 
has  been  his  "  habit  "  to  go  all  the  week;  yet  he  never 
forgets  to  attend  the  gymnasium,  though  he  be  there  not 
oftener  than  once  a  fortnight.  In  the  former  case  the 
habit  was  enforced  by  outer  authority;  in  the  latter,  by 
inner  impulse.  The  one  he  accepted,  the  other  he  adopted. 
So,  as  Sisson  says,  a  real  habit  is  not  the  tendency  to  re- 
peat a  certain  act,  but  "  a  fixed  tendency  to  respond  in  a 
certain  way  to  a  given  stimulus."  Habit-making,  then, 
has  two  factors,  the  stimulus  and  the  response.  The 
most  successful  habit-making  will  evidently  consist  of  a 
stimulus  that  is  in  harmony  with  the  child's  instincts  and 
the  consequent  natural  spontaneous  tendency  to  answer 
and  gladly  comply. 

So  many  are  the  young  child's  instincts  that  we  have 
considerable  to  choose  from  when  we  start  habit-forming. 
Suggestibility  will  carry  a  child  a  good  way  in  several 
directions;  the  instinct  of  activity  supported  by  his  imagi- 
nation helps  him  to  many  tasks  in  the  spirit  of  play. 
Love  woos  him  to  conformity,  and  fear  has  its  place  as  a 
reminder  and  a  control.  No  doubt  we  must  try  to  form 
certain  habits  long  before  the  instinct  that  favors  them 


HABIT-FORMING  63 

appears.  Cleanliness  has  to  be  imposed  by  authority 
until  the  instinct  of  pride  develops  to  demand  it.  Neat- 
ness has  to  be  inculcated  long  before  the  sex-instinct  for 
adornments  insists  upon  an  exquisiteness  that  seems  ab- 
normal. We  have  to  do  many  things  to  enable  children 
whose  preferences  resemble  those  of  people  of  the  thir- 
teenth century  to  live  in  a  twentieth  century  society 
without  shocking  that  society. 

Mrs.  Annie  Winsor  Allen  has  named  some  of  the  desir- 
able habits,  with  the  approximate  years  when  they  should 
be  acquired  —  attending  to  personal  toilet,  undressing, 
using  a  pencil,  using  a  gentle  voice,  before  three  years; 
dressing,  picking  up  toys,  use  of  simple  tools,  before  six 
years;  using  hammer  and  nails,  doing  some  chore  regu- 
larly, having  purposeful  outings,  before  twelve  years. 

Preparations  for  a  New  Habit 

There  are  several  stages  in  training  a  child  in  a  habit. 

First,  we  should  start  with  a  strong  initiative.  If  we 
can  make  an  effective  appeal  to  begin  with,  whether  we 
do  it  by  a  story,  a  bit  of  humor,  an  earnest  suggestion  or 
through  the  force  of  love  or  pride,  we  are  more  likely  to 
enlist  the  feelings  and  the  will  upon  its  side. 

The  second  thing  is,  to  suffer  no  exceptions.  Some 
may  occur,  but  they  should  be  as  few  as  possible.  Rip 
van  Winkle's  "  just  this  once,"  his  swearing-off  drink, 
was  his  undoing.  Here  we  have  to  apply  sometimes  that 
mixture  of  love,  reason  and  determination  which  makes 
up  a  truly  artistic  parenthood. 

Third,  if  possible  let  us  not  force  habit-allegiance. 
This  rule  seems  to  contradict  the  last,  for  if  we  are  not 
to  suffer  an  exception,  we  sometimes  have  to  use  force. 
This  is  true  only  with  young  children.  But  if  we  can 
keep  up  fidelity  by  positive  rather  than  coercive  methods, 
if  we  can  still  have  the  co-operation  of  the  child's  love  and 
will,  we  are  evidently  more  nearly  in  the  way  of  building 
up  a  habit  that  will  last  than  if  we  excite  stubbornness 
and  rebellion,  or  even  induce  a  disliked  act. 

A  fourth  rule,  one  of  mercy,  is  to  keep  the  child  from 


64         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

temptation.  We  appreciate  the  wisdom  of  this  precau- 
tion in  helping  an  adult  drunkard  to  reform.  The  rule  is 
equally  needful  in  the  case  of  the  young,  whose  inclina- 
tions are  fully  as  treacherous  and  whose  wills  are  less 
strong. 

Finally,  we  may  well  aim  to  help  the  child  to  follow 
William  James'  rule,  to  "  give  the  will  a  little  gratuitous 
exercise  every  day."  If  we  keep  a  child  forever  battling 
an  old  habit,  there  is  danger  that  he  will  not  only  become 
hidebound  and  priggish  over  his  victory,  but  that  his 
tired  and  mischievous  spirit  will  relapse  to  the  old  just 
out  of  revenge.  Here  comes  that  fine  idea  about  the 
expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection.  If  one  had  been 
laboring  for  a  while  to  habituate  a  child  to  get  down 
to  breakfast  promptly  every  morning,  it  might  be  a  pleas- 
ing variation  if  he  were  tried  for  a  while  on  combing  his 
hair  successfully  or,  if  this  seemed  to  add  insult  to  injury, 
to  allow  him  to  take  his  father's  place  at  table  and  serve 
occasionally.  The  thing  is  to  have  always  some  new, 
challenging  and  interesting  stimulus  to  the  will. 

For,  as  Sisson  tells  us,  a  habit,  well  absorbed,  is  "  regent 
for  the  future,  independent  will."  It  rules  until  the  will 
is  ready  to  reign. 

Let  us,  to  make  this  matter  more  clear,  trace  through 
these  various  stages  one  good  example  of  how  to  form  a 
habit.  We  select  the  one  already  referred  to,  the 
habit  of  noting  and  practising  personal  cleanliness.  To 
start  it  by  a  strong  initiative,  we  might  tell  the  story  of 
"  Dirty  Jack,"  the  young  boy  who  went  around  among 
the  animals  of  the  field  and  f armyard  to  find  out  which  one 
was  his  kinsman.  After  they  all  had  inspected  his  hands 
and  face  each  in  turn  rejected  him,  until  he  came  to  the 
pigs,  who  hailed  him  as  their  brother!  Another  way  to 
start  would  be,  with  a  young  child  of  pride,  to  arrange  a 
chart  or  calendar,  upon  which  in  gold  stars  his  cleanest 
days  should  be  publicly  recorded.  Then  we  would  suffer 
no  exception.  The  child  would  not  be  given  his  break- 
fast until  he  had  come  clean  to  the  table.  He  might  even 
be  allowed  to  be  late  at  school,  if  he  used  his  imminent 


HABIT-FORMING  65 

tardiness  as  the  reason  for  not  doing  the  washing-up  that 
he  had  neglected.  Third,  we  would  not  use  force.  To 
withhold  breakfast  until  a  child  has  washed  his  face  is 
not  the  use  of  force,  it  is  the  offering  of  an  alternative; 
his  getting  breakfast  is  a  matter  of  his  own  volition.  We 
would  use  positive  and  encouraging  methods.  We  would 
praise  his  unblemished  days,  we  would  allow  him  to 
handle  lovely  picture-books  because  his  hands  were  clean, 
we  would  invite  him  to  attractive  tasks  of  which  only 
clean  hands  are  worthy.  Next,  we  would  keep  him  from 
temptation.  Some  uncleanliness  is  legitimate.  The 
young  child  has  a  right  to  get  dirty  playing  in  the  dirt. 
But  we  would  not  put  a  white  suit  on  him  after  lunch  and 
send  him  out  to  the  dirt-pile.  Finally,  we  would  forget 
cleanliness  once  in  a  while  and  get  him  interested  in  some 
other  habit.  We  would  find  some  habits,  such  as  putting 
in  scrap-pictures,  for  instance,  which  themselves  require, 
as  he  would  notice,  clean  hands. 

The  interesting  way  in  which  children  take  a  well-made 
habit  as  a  matter  of  course  is  illustrated  by  a  story  which 
Mrs.  T.  W.  Birney  tells.  "  Two  little  girls  were  visiting 
a  Southern  town  during  the  cotton  season.  The  town  was 
a  cotton  market,  and  at  the  particular  time  of  which  I 
write  presented  an  exceedingly  untidy  appearance;  not 
only  were  detached  samples  and  other  pieces  of  cotton 
scattered  about  the  dusty  streets,  but  newspapers  and 
other  trash  made  the  town  unsightly.  In  the  midst  of 
such  a  scene  these  two  little  girls  held  up  a  diminutive 
paper  bag  from  which  they  had  just  extracted  the  last 
animal  cracker  and  with  very  earnest  faces  and  genuine 
anxiety  in  their  tones  inquired,  '  Oh,  Mamma,  where  shall 
we  put  this  empty  paper  bag  ?  '  With  some  difficulty  their 
mother  restrained  a  smile,  and  taking  them  into  one  of 
the  shops  near  by  she  said  to  the  amazement  of  the  young 
clerk,  '  Will  you  kindly  put  this  paper  bag  in  your  trash- 
basket  ?  These  little  girls  are  not  accustomed  to  throwing 
paper  in  the  street.'  The  clerk  told  a  friend  afterward  it 
was  the  best  lesson  in  neatness  he  had  ever  had." 


66         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

How  to  Cure  Bad  Habits 

A  word  about  bad  habits.  The  parent  is  to  regard 
them  as  contrary  to  nature  and  is  to  believe  that  if  he 
plants  enough  good  seed  it  will  crowd  them  out.  Young 
children  who  come  home  with  shocking  expressions  on  their 
lips  are  not  to  be  greeted  with  horror.  The  things  they 
say  may  be  stigmatized  at  once  as  not  nice  and  thereafter 
generally  ignored,  while  the  child  is  put  in  the  way  of 
hearing  only  refined  speech  for  a  while,  including  such 
expletives  as  polite  society  uses.  The  result  will  be  that 
the  unfortunate  phrases  will  be  forgotten.  In  general,  we 
are  to  overcome  evil  with  good,  endeavoring  always  to 
discover  the  good  motive,  the  wholesome  activity,  the 
diversion  that  may  displace  what  is  undesirable. 

Deterrent  methods  come  as  a  last  resort,  but  even  these 
can  usually  be  symbolic.  The  soapy  water  cure  for  pro- 
fanity is  such.  A  writer  in  Harper's  Bazar  used  this, 
which  was  fair  as  well  as  symbolic,  and  involved  an  oppor- 
tunity for  choice: 

One  of  the  most  aggravating  faults  of  two  impulsive 
boys  proved  to  be  a  disposition  to  interrupt  when  some 
one  else  was  speaking,  in  order  to  interpolate  their  own 
views.  The  disagreeable  habit  did  not  yield  to  explana- 
tions of  the  rudeness  of  the  practice  nor  to  reprimands 
upon  the  numerous  slips  in  this  line. 

Each  boy  was  the  recipient  of  a  small  allowance  of 
pocket-money  weeldy  to  supply  small  personal  and  school 
needs,  and  the  distressed  mother  noticed  how  eagerly 
plans  were  made  ahead  for  its  use.  She  determined  to  use 
this  fact  as  a  leverage  of  control. 

Quietly  she  announced  that  at  the  least  sign  of  a  break 
in  the  way  of  interruption  of  another's  conversation  she 
should  unostentatiously  raise  one  forefinger.  If  this  warn- 
ing were  not  heeded  she  would  raise  two  fingers,  which 
signal  would  mean  a  fine  of  five  cents. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week  both  boys  had  not  only  lost 
their  whole  allowance,  but  were  in  debt  besides;  this,  too, 
without  a  word  of  fault-finding  or  scolding. 

The  second  week  saw  a  decided  improvement,  and  the 


HABIT-FORMING  67 

end  of  the  month  proved  the  objectionable  habit  to  be  a 
bit  of  ancient  history. 

A  child  should  come  up  to  the  days  of  youth  with  all 
the  common  courtesies  a  matter  of  course,  religious  ob- 
servances so  much  a  custom  that  they  stand  ready  to 
become  natural  expressions  for  his  awakening  religious 
nature,  and  kindly  and  generous  attitudes  of  thought  so 
long  established  that  when  he  gets  ready  to  take  himself 
in  hand  he  shall  have  so  many  Christian  presumptions  in 
his  experience  that  it  will  be  difficult  to  disown  them. 

Reading  References 

A  great  chapter  on  habit  is  in  William  James'  "  Larger  Psychology." 
It  has  been  reprinted  in  a  small  book,  under  the  title  "  Habit."  Sisson: 
"  The  Essentials  of  Character,"  has  one  good  chapter  on  the  subject,  IV, 
and  there  are  helpful  references  in  Thorndike's  "  Education,"  95-116, 
170-175. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PROBLEMS  OF  OBEDIENCE 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  this  is  one  of  three  chapters 
devoted  to  the  home  training  and  government  of  children 
and  young  people.  The  present  chapter  discusses  the 
problem  in  the  first  six  years  of  life,  the  years  from  six  to 
twelve  are  covered  in  Chapter  XXVII,  and  the  adolescent 
years  in  Chapter  XXXI. 

As  is  suggested  by  the  title  of  this  chapter,  the  special 
problem  at  the  start  of  life  is  that  of  obedience.  This 
is  true  not,  as  some  seem  to  suppose,  because  demanding 
obedience  is  a  divine  right  of  parents,  but  rather  because 
it  is  such  a  necessary  protection  to  young  children.  We 
are  obliged  to  use  our  good  sense  in  behalf  of  little  ones, 
who  haven't  any.  Since  our  sole  excuse  for  exercising 
authority  is  the  child's  welfare,  that  authority  ceases 
when  the  child  no  longer  needs  it.  Obedience  even  to 
wise  parents  is  a  virtue  only  until  the  child  is  old  enough 
to  be  trained  by  more  advanced  methods. 

But  since  it  must,  for  the  child's  own  safety,  be  abso- 
lute for  a  time,  how  essential  it  is  that  obedience  be 
grounded  in  impartial  wisdom  and  goodness!  '  The  es- 
sential of  good  government,"  says  John  W.  Dinsmore, 
"  is  a  good  governor." 

It  is  usually  agreed  that  the  earliest  days  of  dawning 
intelligence  are  not  too  soon  to  impress  upon  the  child 
the  necessity  of  docility  to  command.  Mothers  find 
that  they  need  to  resist  the  tyranny  of  babies  from  the 
start.  They  must  never  be  allowed  to  get  their  own 
way  by  cries  of  temper  or  of  entreaty.  While  the  wise 
and  loving  mother  watches  every  symptom  and  learns 
to  interpret  every  mood  and  outcry,  she  and  not  the 
child  must  take  the  direction  of  his  ways  if  he  is  to  become 

68 


THE  PROBLEMS  OF  OBEDIENCE  69 

a  happy  little  blessing  and  not  a  burden  both  to  himself 
and  to  others. 

Some  maxims  that  may  be  helpful  in  maintaining  the 
right  attitude  in  the  face  of  unforeseen  emergencies  are 
these : 

1.  Make  up  your  mind  beforehand  as  clearly  as  you 
can  what  you  will  and  what  you  cannot  allow. 

2.  Express  clearly,  after  gaining  the  child's  full  atten- 
tion, what  you  want  him  to  do  or  to  refrain  from  doing. 

3.  Let  there  be  always  a  cheerful  expectancy  that 
what  you  want  done  will  be  done. 

4.  Change  your  mind  only  when  you  are  wrong,  not 
because  you  are  entreated,  and  not  because  the  wise  way 
proves  to  be  more  difficult  than  you  at  first  supposed. 

5.  Try  to  make  your  will  and  the  expressions  of  it 
always  the  reflection  of  the  everlasting  right. 

6.  Habitually  connect  some  sort  of  pleasure  with  obedi- 
ence and  some  sort  of  pain  with  disobedience. 

Collisions 

A  little  child  is  bound  to  collide  occasionally  with  the 
will  of  his  parents.  He  is  not  naughty,  but  he  is  lively. 
In  a  moral  sense  he  is  neither  obedient  nor  disobedient, 
but  he  is  full  of  various  impulses,  some  of  which  are  dis- 
orderly, some  dangerous.  He  is  naturally  dirty,  and 
careless  of  perils  of  whose  extent  he  is  not  aware.  Since 
the  child  seeks  near  rather  than  remote  ends,  knowing  no 
other,  he  appears  to  be  selfish.  It  is  perhaps  intended 
that  he  should  find  himself  before  he  has  the  happiest 
relations  with  his  neighbors.  He  can,  of  course,  however, 
love  himself  and  his  neighbor  both  if  he  has  the  capacity 
to  love  at  all.  While  he  is  affectionate,  and  so  can  be 
sorry,  he  generally  seeks  these  nearer  ends,  his  own  pleas- 
ures, regardless  of  any  one ;  he  feels  little  sense  of  shame  or 
penitence;  he  knows  no  self-condemnation;  he  regards 
opposition  as  hostility;  and  he  does  not  care  what  people 
think  of  him.  He  yields  to  suggestion,  force  and  reward, 
but  often  quibbles  and  "  eases  off  "  perfect  compliance, 
and  sometimes  puts  up  an  intelligent,* vigorous  and  per- 


70         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

sistent  resistance  which  ought  to  be  gratifying  to  us  as 
evidence  that  he  is  a  person  of  parts. 

Yet  he  has  a  curious  love  of  regularity  and  after  he 
has  done  a  thing  right  often  enough  he  likes  better  to  do 
it  that  way.  He  likes  the  same  commands  for  the  same 
duties,  he  objects  to  exceptions  and  whatever  he  has 
been  made  to  do  himself  he  likes  to  insist  on  from  his 
juniors.  If  we  are  patient  in  getting  him  to  like  his 
right  habits,  they  become  his  allies  as  well  as  his  friends. 

Methods  of  Securing  Obedience 

The  necessity  of  securing  a  child's  full  attention  when 
obedience  is  desired  has  been  mentioned.  Children  are 
often  punished  for  disobeying  commands  which  they  did 
not  really  hear,  or  which  they  did  not  understand,  or  which 
they  have  forgotten.  A  good  rule  is,  never  to  give  an 
order  to  a  child  until  he  is  looking  you  squarely  in  the 
face.  The  faculty  of  attention  is  a  moral  as  well  as  an 
intellectual  support,  and  parents  who  ruthlessly  interrupt 
it  by  calling  children  needlessly  from  absorption  in  their 
games  are  themselves  breaking  down  a  force  which 
should  work  later  for  mental  application  and  moral 
devotion. 

Government  by  words,  then,  has  a  large  place  in  a 
young  child's  experience,  words  clear,  timely,  decisive, 
kindly  and  not  domineering  or  querulous,  challenging  to 
obstinacy  or  irritating  to  wrath. 

Some  little  children  respond  well  to  homilies;  that  is,  if 
the  homilies  be  sprightly,  affectionate  and  in  story  form. 
But  sermonics  are  often  futile  and  the  child  may  look 
fascinated  at  the  facile  maternal  jaw  without  absorbing  a 
single  idea  she  utters. 

Suggestion  is  better.  An  expectant,  happy  manner 
accompanied  by  a  co-operating  spirit  will  win  almost  any 
child  to  pick  up  his  blocks  even  when  he  is  very  tired  and 
feels  it  a  bore  to  do  so. 

Especially  does  a  suggestive  appeal  to  the  imagination 
help.  To  be  under  drill,  to  play  one  is  a  soldier,  will  get 
many  hard   things   done.     To  co-operate  in  one's  own 


THE   PROBLEMS  OF  OBEDIENCE  71 

punishment  by  playing  one  is  in  prison  gives  a  chance  for 
some  needed  thoughtful  solitude  which  itself  corrects 
many  a  bad  habit. 

Rewards  may  be  used  with  caution,  so  long  -as  they 
seem  the  natural  accompaniments  of  virtue.  The  child, 
for  instance,  who  does  his  work  will  have  more  time  left 
to  play.  The  one  who  is  gentle  with  a  pet  animal  shows 
that  he  deserves  to  have  one  of  his  own.  But  bribes  are 
dangerous.  Small  payments  for  unusual  patience  or 
industry  may  be  regarded  as  legitimate,  since  they  are 
symbols  of  what  those  virtues  will  earn  in  later  life. 

Emulation  is  generally  bad.  To  strive  to  equal  a 
superexcellent  sister  or  outdo  a  plodding  brother  is 
likely  to  nurture  long-enduring  envy  and  hatred. 

Punishment 

The  most  perplexing  questions  are  those  related  to 
punishment.  Punishment  is  necessary.  It  may  be  de- 
fined as  negative  reward.  When  the  child  does  right  we 
try  to  see  that  he  gains  what  right-doing  gives,  as  an 
encouragement.  When  he  does  wrong  we  think  he  ought 
to  have  enough  of  the  results  of  wrong-doing  to  act  as  a 
deterrent.  If  this  be  our  theory,  then  there  is  no  room 
for  punishment  as  revenge  or  as  an  act  for  the  sake  of 
relieving  the  parent's  mind.  Some  deny  any  place  to 
fear  as  a  motive  power,  yet  it  does  seem  necessary  for 
the  young  child's  self-protection  that  he  should  at  times 
pause,  appreciate  the  danger  of  his  course  and  avoid  it. 
The  chief  purpose  of  any  punishment,  of  course,  is  to 
correct  the  harm. 

When  we  say  that  punishment  is  deterrent,  we  do  not 
necessarily  mean  that  the  child  is  benumbed ;  he  may  even 
be  made  by  it  mentally  and  physically  more  alert.  And 
since  his  fear  should  be  not  fear  of  his  parents  but  fear  of 
the  consequences,  he  may  learn  by  it  to  shun  the  evil  and 
to  choose  the  good.  His  best  strength  in  his  fear  is  that 
his  parents  are  his  friends,  whatever  happens,  and  so  in 
conquering  himself  or  in   meeting   the  consequences   of 


72         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

ignorance  or  folly,  he  may  depend  that  they  are  upon 
his  side. 

We  have  been  implying  that  punishments  should  be 
"  natural  " ;  that  is,  they  should  be  imitative  of  the  result 
which  the  offence,  if  unchecked,  would  be  likely  to  pro- 
duce. Such  evidently  are  just,  certain,  salutary,  and 
involve  less  rancor  against  their  promoters  than  those 
produced  by  whim  or  arbitrariness.  They  result  in  a  real 
learning  from  experience. 

Deprivation  is  one  of  the  most  common  forms  of 
natural  punishment.  The  child  soon  learns  that  if  he 
misuses  a  toy  or  a  pet  he  cannot  have  it,  that  if  he  dis- 
turbs the  family  peace  he  loses  the  family  society.  But 
the  method  gradually  loses  its  validity,  as  it  grows  more 
difficult  to  arrange  results  naturally  and  promptly.  The 
limitations  are  obvious,  too.  The  natural  punishment 
for  a  child's  leaning  out  of  the  window  would  be  that  he 
would  break  his  neck,  but  we  cannot  allow  that.  The 
natural  result  of  a  child's  lying  is  that  nobody  believes 
what  he  says,  yet  such  a  child  usually  most  needs  his 
parents'  confidence.  The  severest  limitation  is  that  the 
discipline  of  consequences  by-and-by  ignores  the  element 
of  personality.  There  is  something  that  is  hurt  inside  a 
child  when  he  does  wrong,  whether  he  hurts  anybody 
else  or  not,  or  whether  he  is  found  out  or  goes  unpunished. 
Gradually  that  sense  of  ought  appears,  and  after  it  has 
appeared  "  natural  "  punishment  is  not  wholly  effective. 

Corporal  Punishment 

The  question  whether  corporal  punishment  is  ever  ad- 
visable is  best  answered  pragmatically.  No  doubt  most 
children  are  harmed  by  it,  and  most  parents  are  made 
worse  by  administering  it,  but  there  seems  little  doubt,  too, 
that  a  few  children  accept  it  with  curious  satisfaction. 
When  trouble  has  been  a  long  time  brewing  and  has 
finally  come  to  a  climax  it  seems  just  to  jolt  the  child  into 
the  right  mind.  Such  children  will  sometimes  accept 
punishment  as  a  help  to  being  good,  as  a  help  to  remember, 
a  help  to  keep  out  of  danger.     Punishment  should  always 


THE   PROBLEMS   OF  OBEDIENCE  73 

help;  it  should  always  look  to  the  future.  It  should  never 
be  an  effort  to  get  even  or  straighten  out  the  irrevocable 
past. 

So  far  as  it  is  possible  to  generalize  about  this  very- 
delicate  remedy  when  only  experience  with  the  individual, 
thoughtfully  considered,  can  determine  its  propriety  in  a 
given  instance,  it  appears  that  corporal  punishment  should 
be  reserved  for  deliberate  disobedience  and  be  intended 
to  determine  the  question  of  leadership ;  it  is  effective  only 
with  quite  small  children;  it  should  be  applied  always 
privately,  moderately  and  in  a  manner  as  little  humiliat- 
ing as  possible ;  it  should  be  dealt  by  the  parent  as  a  dutiful 
ceremony  without  excitement  or  anger;  it  should  come  as 
promptly  as  possible  after  the  offence  but  never  at  bed- 
time, and  when  it  is  over  the  parent  should  be  completely 
forgiving  and  forgetful.  The  parent  needs  to  avoid  the 
casual  smack  given  alike  for  every  offence  and  the  cruel 
ordeal  which  is  clearly  the  expression  of  his  own  passion. 
The  fact  that  some  blows  given  in  anger  to  exasperating 
infants  have  done  them  good  seems  to  show  that  righteous 
indignation  is  occasionally  recognized  as  such  by  the 
budding  mind.  This  fact,  while  it  is  satisfying  at  the 
moment,  does  not  guarantee  the  safety  or  wisdom  of  a 
repetition.  Blows  are  always  dangerous  to  the  parent, 
even  if  we  have  reason  to  suppose  that  now  and  then  they 
may  be  safe  for  the  child. 

Choice  and  Activity 

To  give  a  child  some  measure  of  choice,  even  in  his  pun- 
ishments, is  desirable.  It  is  usually  better  to  tell  a  child 
that  if  he  doesn't  stop  bawling  within  two  minutes  he  must 
go  to  his  room  than  to  drag  him  to  his  room  at  once,  for  the 
former  method  gives  him  a  chance  to  do  two  very  laudable 
and  valuable  things, — to  make  up  his  mind  and  to  use  his 
will.  Even  to  give  a  child  his  choice  between  two  pun- 
ishments is  not  a  bad  idea,  for  even  if  he  chooses  the  less 
painful  it  will  still  be  a  punishment,  but  the  one  that 
seems  to  him  the  more  just. 

Choice  involves  activity,  and  government  by  activity 


74         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

is  the  best  of  all  methods  of  home  training.  With  babies 
we  do  not  remove  the  dangerous  plaything  without  giving 
at  the  same  instant  a  safe  one.  We  forefend  an  undesirable 
plan  when  the  child  has  begun  to  get  about  by  planning  a 
diversion.  We  dare  not  say  "  don't  "  very  often  in  the 
nursery,  particularly  "  don't  touch,"  because  we  have 
come  to  know  that  the  touch-instinct  and  the  touch 
hunger  are  the  most  valuable  motive  powers  in  self- 
education,  but  instead,  we  plan  to  fill  the  whole  day  with 
safe,  happy,  eager  doing,  and  a  child  who  is  safely  busy  is 
always  good. 

Reading  References 

There  is  a  golden  chapter  in  Allen:  "  Home,  School  and  Vacation," 
upon  obedience,  under  the  title  "  Maxims  of  Home  Discipline."  Mrs. 
Wood- Allen  in  her  "  Making  the  Best  of  Our  Children,"  first  series,  has 
a  helpful  chapter.  Mrs.  Chenery:  "As  the  Twig  is  Bent,"  takes  up  the 
problem  as  it  relates  to  children  between  four  and  eight. 

Jacob  Abbott's  fine  old  book,  "  Gentle  Measures  in  the  Training  of  the 
Young,"  discusses  the  question  of  punishment  wisely.  His  grandson, 
Ernest  Hamlin  Abbott:  "  On  the  Training  of  Parents,"  follows  in  the  same 
line. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SEX   INSTRUCTION  AND   DISCIPLINE 

There  seems  to  be  general  agreement  today  as  to  the 
necessity  of  sex  instruction  in  the  home.  There  are 
differences  of  opinion  as  to  its  desirability  in  the  schools. 
The  only  prominent  opponent  of  sex  instruction  generally 
is  Dr.  Hugo  Miinsterberg.  His  arguments  should  in  fair- 
ness be  weighed.  His  principal  objection  to  such  teaching 
is  that  it  stimulates  the  passions  and  so  weakens  rather 
than  strengthens  the  defences  of  the  will  against  immoral- 
ity. This  is  probably  true  to  some  extent  during  adoles- 
cence, although  such  stimulation  is  reduced  to  a  minimum 
if  the  instruction  be  oral,  given  by  a  parent  and  stated  in 
terms  of  moral  ideal  and  self-mastery.  Such  an  influence 
is  quite  obviated  if  the  instruction  is  given  before  the 
years  when  the  sex  nature  awakens  and  if  it  is  followed  by 
a  wise  physical  and  moral  discipline  of  the  sex  life.  Dr. 
Miinsterberg  argues  that  if  the  child  is  left  ignorant  his 
fears  and  his  natural  shame  will  be  his  protection.  (The 
word  "  his  "  should  be  changed  to  "  her,"  for  he  seems 
more  certain  that  this  will  be  true  of  girls  than  of  boys.) 
Unfortunately  no  child  is  ever  "  left  ignorant  "  nowadays. 
Three-fourths  of  all  boys  and  girls  get  a  nearly  complete 
though  often  distorted  and  unwholesome  equipment  of 
information  by  the  time  they  are  ten  years  old.  It  is 
hard  to  see  how  fear  can  protect  if  one  does  not  knowr  what 
to  be  afraid  of,  or  how  ignorant  shame  can  carry  a  boy  or 
girl  safely  through  the  insidious  temptations  of  our 
modern  social  life. 

Our  better  course  seems  to  be  to  give  instruction,  but 
to  see  that  it  is  done  by  the  right  persons  in  the  right  way 
and  at  the  right  times.  We  may  agree  with  Dr.  Miinster- 
berg, Dr.  Cabot  and  others,  however,  that  mere  instruc- 
tion is  not  enough.     To  know  what  sin  is  and  what  are 

75 


76         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

its  wages  has  not  made  the  world  good,  though  it  has 
taught  those  who  wanted  to  be  good  where  trouble  lies. 
Our  more  important  duty  is  so  to  reinforce  the  will  and 
strengthen  the  ideals  that  the  informed  youth  shall  choose 
to  live  purely.  This  is  not  a  matter  of  merely  conveying 
some  facts;  it  means  a  course  of  moral  gymnastics.  Sex 
discipline  is  as  necessary  as  sex  instruction. 

Who  Is  to  Do  This? 

Evidently  the  parents,  the  mother  first  and  later,  with 
boys,  the  father.  For  the  present,  at  least,  it  seems  un- 
likely that  these  matters  will  be  taught  in  the  schools. 
If  they  should  be,  there  will  at  first  probably  be  little 
more  than  an  indirect  approach  through  nature  study  in 
the  lower  grades  that  represent  the  age  when  first  instruc- 
tion should  begin.  The  physician  may,  especially  during 
adolescence,  prove  a  valued  assistant  to  the  parent,  but 
he  is  not  in  a  position  to  give  that  consecutive  training 
and  watchfulness  which  constitute  adequate  help.  Gen- 
erally physicians  are  poor  teachers.  The  minister  may 
prove  an  ally,  too,  but  he  has  neither  the  preparation  nor 
the  opportunity  to  take  this  work  from  parental  shoul- 
ders. The  so-called  "  expert  "  is  to  be  distrusted,  for 
those  who  specialize  in  this  theme  are  quite  likely  to  be 
morbid  about  it,  and  a  lecture  from  a  platform  is  a  poor 
substitute  for  the  careful  explanations  and  answers  to 
questions  which  alone  give  satisfactory  knowledge.  Any 
audience  of  boys  or  girls  old  enough  to  listen  intelligently 
necessarily  numbers  young  persons  of  various  physio- 
logical and  psychological  ages.  Each  has  his  own  special 
inquiry  or  anxiety.  No  blanket  information  can  suffice. 
The  conversation  that  ensues  among  these  half -instructed 
young  folks  is  hardly  informative  or  wholesome. 

Books  are  useful  for  giving  parents  scientific  knowledge 
and  suggesting  the  language  of  presentation,  but  they 
should  not  be  put  into  the  hands  of  children.  They  are 
ready-made,  they  do  not  answer  the  difficulty  of  the 
moment.  Most  of  them  are  vague,  and  so  do  not  give 
concrete  knowledge.     Many  of  them  are  sentimental,  and 


SEX  INSTRUCTION  AND  DISCIPLINE  77 

so  are  unwholesome.  A  few  of  them  tell  too  much,  and 
so  are  too  stimulating.  The  timid  parent  may  possibly 
find  it  necessary  to  put  what  he  thinks  the  most  suitable 
book  in  his  child's  hands,  but  he  should  do  this  chiefly 
as  an  excuse  for  starting  a  conversation  in  which  he  should 
discover  whether  the  child  really  got  what  the  book  had 
for  him,  and  what  more  the  child  wants  to  know.  Such 
books  would  better  be  taken  away  after  reading,  so  that 
they  will  not  be  brooded  over  or  loaned  about  among  the 
children  of  the  neighborhood. 

Just  What  the  Problem  Is 

Two  situations  of  childhood  and  youth  are  involved  in 
sex  instruction  and  discipline.  One  is  that  before  and 
the  other  that  after  the  sex  nature  awakens.  In  the 
earlier  period  we  are  busy  with  general  preparation ;  in  the 
later  we  are  helping  the  youth  meet  a  personal  problem. 
At  first  our  work  is  simple  and  easy.  We  ourselves  should 
feel  little  if  any  self-consciousness  in  communicating  the 
facts  during  the  years  when  all  acts  and  facts  have  equal 
rank,  and  the  discipline  of  those  years  is  that  of  general 
self-control.  But  later,  when  our  own  shyness  is  met  by 
the  self -consciousness  of  youth,  the  problem  is  one  which 
he  himself  feels  poignantly  and  the  discipline  must  be 
specific  and  urgent.  The  more  we  can  do  in  the  way  of 
early  instruction  and  training,  the  easier  and  the  better  it 
will  be. 

Instruction  and  Discipline  of  Pre-Adolescents 

The  first  item  in  the  long  program  is  instruction  as  to 
the  personal  toilet.  Assured  that  the  child's  private 
parts  are  in  normal  condition,  the  parent  must  teach  the 
child  to  cleanse  them  regularly  and  that  he  is  otherwise 
to  leave  them  alone.  These,  like  the  rest  of  the  bodily 
temple,  are  to  be  treated  reverentially.  Modesty  is  to 
be  taught,  but  even  in  doing  so  the  child  is  to  learn  that 
some  parts  of  the  body  are  withheld  from  exhibition,  not 
because  they  are  shameful,  but  because  they  deserve  and 


78         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD    TRAINING 

require  special  protection.  And  the  child  is  to  be  taught 
that  whatever  is  told  him  about  these  organs  is  a  secret 
between  his  parent  and  himself,  kept  not  because  it  is 
shameful,  as  it  is  not,  but  just  as  we  do  not  tell  our  neigh- 
bors about  our  prayers  or  our  family  affairs. 

The  habit  of  self-abuse,  which  sometimes  sets  parents 
into  panic  and  causes  them  to  think  their  children  de- 
generate, is  often  acquired  innocently  through  the  acci- 
dental discovery  that  it  is  pleasurable,  and  is  occasioned 
more  often  than  by  any  other  one  cause  by  the  neglect 
of  the  parent  to  instruct  the  child  how,  by  proper 
cleanliness  and  care,  to  avoid  a  local  condition  of  irrita- 
bility. The  most  serious  meaning  of  such  a  habit  is  not 
physical  but  the  fact  that  it  is  a  selfish  indulgence,  likely  to 
lead  into  sensuality  hereafter.  Both  among  boys  and  girls, 
the  method  of  prevention  and  cure  is  the  positive  one.  Im- 
mediate rising  on  waking,  the  cold  morning  splash  and  rub, 
the  athletic  ideal,  the  broadest  conception  of  what  manhood 
or  womanhood  means,  getting  "  good  and  tired  "  and  going 
to  bed  ready  for  calm,  dreamless  sleep  —  these  are  the  best 
ways  to  help  the  child  to  master  his  body.  The  child  who 
is  softly  nurtured,  overfed,  greedy  and  indulged  is  being 
actually  trained  for  sensuality.  But  to  go  into  training 
for  wholesome  bodily  living  is  to  make  ready  for  moral 
living  later.  Whatever  makes  a  child  self -controlled, 
ready  for  hardship  and  full  of  abounding  life  now  is  the 
best  kind  of  sex  discipline  for  this  period  of  life.  For  no 
other  reason  than  this  is  it  so  important  that  confidential 
relations  should  be  maintained  between  parent  and  child. 
There  is  almost  certain  to  be  some  physical  state  or 
symptom,  some  obscure  physiological  fact,  some  social 
or  moral  situation  involving  the  sex  life,  concerning 
which  the  child  knows  no  person  in  the  world  whom  he 
can  depend  upon  for  knowledge  or  wisdom,  unless  it  is 
his  father  or  mother.  It  is  a  pathetic  tragedy  if  he  dares 
not  confide  in  them.  Even  the  parent  who  is  timid  about 
offering  information  can  keep  the  door  open  to  his  child, 
so  that  when  he  comes  and  asks  for  it  he  may  obtain 


SEX  INSTRUCTION  AND   DISCIPLINE  79 

what  he  needs.  No  parent  need  find  it  hard  to  talk  about 
this  matter,  if  he  is  sure  his  child  desires  to  listen. 

The  child  should  receive  some  instruction.  The  best 
occasion  is  in  answer  to  some  inevitable  question,  often 
stimulated  by  observations  among  the  animals  or  birds 
or  in  the  human  family  life,  or  by  some  attempt  at  revela- 
tion by  a  playmate.  The  very  best  opportunity,  and  one 
to  be  taken  advantage  of,  is  when  a  new  baby  is  expected 
in  the  home  or  neighborhood.  The  evening  is  a  good 
time,  when  the  light  is  shaded  and  the  child  is  in  mother's 
lap,  too  sleepy  to  discuss  the  matter,  but  in  the  mood  of 
reception,  of  content  and  gratitude. 

As  to  our  manner  in  such  a  conversation,  it  should  be 
matter-of-fact.  There  is  no  excuse  for  self -consciousness, 
since  to  the  child  all  information  is  of  equal  rank  and 
interest.  There  is  no  reason  to  suggest  that  what  we  tell 
is  unusual.  His  questions  are  innocent,  not  serious.  If 
he  has  shocked  us  already  by  some  vulgar  word  or  phrase, 
it  has  been  either  through  ignorance  or  bravado.  We 
should  above  all  things  be  honest,  since  we  cannot  exact 
honesty  from  him  in  all  realms  unless  we  grant  it  to  him 
in  this  one.  The  mother  may  sometimes  wisely  postpone 
an  answer  to  an  especially  startling  inquiry  until  a  more 
propitious  time  and  until  she  has  carefully  framed  her 
answer,  but  it  should  be  a  short  postponement,  and  not 
an  avoidance.  We  should  be  sure  the  child  is  attentive. 
Some  children  ask  questions  for  the  sake  of  making  con- 
versation, but  it  is  fair  to  demand  that  they  should  listen 
during  this  explanation  until  it  is  clear  and  then  dismiss 
the  subject  from  their  minds,  unless  additional  informa- 
tion is  wanted.  There  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
chatter  about  it  daily. 

What  to  Tell 

There  are  two  questions  which  a  child  ought  to  ask,  and 
probably  will,  before  he  is  ten,  perhaps  before  he  is  six 
years  old,  and  both  should  be  answered  whenever  they  are 
asked.     One  is:  "  How  do  babies  come?"  or  some  other 


80         CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

inquiry  that  leads  to  the  mother's  part  in  the  renewal  of 
life. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  "  the  stork  story  "  and  "  the 
doctor  story  "  are  unnecessary.  Many,  perhaps  most, 
counsellors  advise  leading  up  to  the  explanation  by  using 
such  incidents  as  frequently  occur  in  the  plant  and  animal 
world.  This  takes  some  time  and  requires  a  number  of 
analogies.  The  writer  is  convinced  that  the  method  is 
needlessly  devious  and  that  we  prefer  it  because  we  are 
shy  rather  than  because  the  method  is  helpful.  Why  not 
say  at  once  that  all  life  comes  from  parents;  why  not  tell 
little  children  immediately  that  the  child  himself  was 
carried  in  a  nest  in  his  mother's  body  close  under  her 
heart  and  was  brought  into  the  world,  as  all  little  ones  are, 
through  the  gates  of  birth?  "The  farm-yard  method" 
and  the  garden  story  then  become  useful  supports  and 
reminders  for  the  human  story.  The  method  of  flower- 
fertilization,  the  growth  of  chickens  from  the  egg,  the 
birth  of  puppies,  are  easily  observed  and  accessible  experi- 
ences, which  require  to  be  interpreted  and  which,  in  turn, 
interpret  chastely  what  takes  place  in  humanity.  In 
some  ways  it  seems  better  to  emphasize  the  differences 
rather  than  the  similarities  between  the  animal  and  the 
human  world.  The  human  life  is  immeasurably  above 
that  of  any  of  the  animals ;  human  parents  love  before  they 
mate,  and  they  care  for  their  young  throughout  their 
lifetime  as  none  of  the  animals  do.  There  will  come  a 
time,  too,  when  we  must  show  the  youth  that  with  the 
animals  a  normal  sex  life  is  an  instinct,  but  that  with  man 
it  is  an  achievement.  We  do  not  want  him  to  use  his 
animal  nature  as  an  excuse  for  behaving  like  an  animal. 

The  other  question  which  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  asked 
is  as  to  the  part  of  fathers  in  reproduction.  There  is  an 
unwise  reluctance  as  to  revealing  this,  and  children  have 
anguished  over  the  puzzle,  with  the  result  that  both  boys 
and  girls  grow  up  with  the  feeling  that,  however  beautiful 
and  noble  motherhood  may  be,  there  is  something  shame- 
ful about  becoming  a  father.     That  this  feeling  has  had 


SEX  INSTRUCTION  AND  DISCIPLINE  81 

its  result  in  degrading  fatherhood  and  in  encouraging 
impurity  among  boys  there  can  be  no  question. 

This  question  should  be  answered  as  soon  as  it  is  asked. 
It  is  much  better  to  tell  it  before  the  child  has  sex- 
consciousness.  With  boys  we  lose  the  strongest  motive 
for  the  protection  of  the  organs  of  generation  when  we 
postpone  knowledge  of  their  use.  We  prepare  girls  for  a 
sickly,  unwholesome  kind  of  shame  if  they  grow  up  in  a 
world  where  pictures,  sculpture,  literature  and  conversa- 
tion leave  them  half  instructed  but  needlessly  embarrassed. 

Children  of  both  sexes  may  safely  be  told  how  the  seeds 
of  life  are  nourished  and  carried  and  deposited.  Quietly 
revealed,  this  mystery  will  impress  any  child  as  a  beautiful 
miracle-play,  and  its  satisfying  completeness  will  tend 
to  prevent  rather  than  stimulate  further  thought  and 
curiosity. 

In  all  this  early  teaching  there  is  the  direct  opportunity 
to  show  how  the  sex  organs  are  chiefly  the  sacred  instru- 
ments for  the  maintenance  of  family  life.  A  child  gets 
no  other  conception  of  their  use  from  his  companions  than 
that  they  are  primarily  for  personal  and  sensual  pleasure. 
By  this  method  both  boys  and  girls  see  that  they  are  the 
means  for  handing  down  life,  and  that  therefore  they  are 
to  be  protected  as  such  by  those  to  whose  stewardship 
they  are  given. 

This  frankness  sets  the  child  free  to  continue  to  be  child- 
like, and  not  inquisitive,  or  furtive  or  baffled. 

Even  during  the  pre-adolescent  years  a  good  father 
ought  to  share  in  this  teaching.  After  a  mother  has  told 
the  story  of  birth,  a  father  should  tell  the  little  son  or 
daughter  how  hard  and  how  perilous  it  all  was  when  the 
child's  own  life  was  given,  and  so  win  for  the  mother  for- 
ever after  the  gratitude  and  considerateness  which  she 
deserves.  It  is  more  natural,  too,  for  fathers  to  tell  the 
father-story  to  their  young  sons. 

Instruction  and  Discipline  of  Adolescents 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  all  the  instruction  suggested 
above  can  be  given  in  one  interview.     It  is  a  consequence 


82         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

of  the  method  here  described,  which  arouses  no  sex  con- 
sciousness, that  information  is  more  easily  forgotten. 
The  parent  must  occasionally  review,  or  question,  and 
add  a  few  facts  as  they  are  needed.  For  example,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  urge  the  child  to  resist  with  scorn  and 
indignation  any  invasion  of  his  or  her  physical  privacy 
by  another  of  either  sex.  At  the  dawn  of  adolescence  it 
is  necessary  for  a  mother  to  inform  her  daughter  about  the 
facts  and  hygiene  of  menstruation.  Adolescent  boys,  too, 
would  be  more  considerate  of  their  mothers,  sisters  and 
friends  if  they  knew  that  they  are  at  times  in  a  condition 
which  requires  especially  tender  care.  By  this  time,  too, 
it  is  necessary  that  young  people  should  know  that  there 
are  unfortunate  women  who  make  hire  of  their  bodies,  and 
men  who  are  so  debased  as  to  prostitute  their  own  powers. 
It  is  also  absolutely  necessary  in  early  adolescence  to  say 
something  about  the  awful  filth-diseases  that  are  the 
wages  of  sin,  at  least  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  the  public 
sources  of  contamination,  and  later  for  deterrence.  There 
should  be  no  dark  places  left  in  the  mind  of  youth  furnish- 
ing room  for  sex-worries,  or  justifying  recourse  to  quacks 
or  contaminated  literature. 

But  for  both  men  and  maidens  the  great  need  now  is 
the  positive,  not  the  negative  —  moral  gymnastics  rather 
than  mental  equipment.  Paul's  motto,  "  I  go  into  train- 
ing for  the  contests  of  godliness,"  must  be  the  motto  of 
every  young  man  and  woman.  The  problem  now  is  no 
longer  one  of  hearsay.  The  sexual  impulse,  coming  sud- 
denly, is  in  the  lives  of  many  young  men  so  masterful  that 
knowledge,  ideals,  even  prayers  and  strong  crying  are 
hardly  effective  to  stay  the  compulsion.  The  erotic 
tendency,  assisted  by  the  instinct  to  dare  and  the  more 
ancient  instinct  to  chase,  pushes  hard  at  the  barriers  of  self- 
restraint.  With  young  women,  thoroughly  protected, 
the  impulse  expresses  itself  more  indirectly  through  charm 
and  beauty  and  allurement,  but  unguarded  and  betrayed 
by  woman's  instinct  to  give,  it,  too,  may  press  on  to  moral 
defeat.  The  sex-hungers  are  stimulated  today  by  our 
sensuous  amusements,  our  lavish  living,  foolishly  unchape- 


SEX  INSTRUCTION  AND  DISCIPLINE  S3 

roned  opportunity,  the  freedom  of  the  first  departure  from 
home,  and  the  necessary  postponement  of  marriage. 

We  must  do  all  we  can  now  to  strengthen  the  good 
motives  and  right  attitudes.  Every  possible  motive  must 
be  brought  to  bear  to  upstay  the  will  and  to  keep  the  life 
stainless.  With  one  the  personal  motives  may  avail: 
self-respect,  the  noblesse  oblige  that  will  not  hunt  down  a 
woman  and  would  not  hurt  an  unborn  child,  refinement, 
disgust,  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  calls  "  truculent  integrity," 
even  the  fear  of  personal  injury.  With  another  the  social 
passion  will  be  more  effective:  loyalty  to  clan,  reverence 
of  motherhood,  chivalry  to  sisterhood,  the  unwillingness 
to  make  a  thrall  of  another  soul,  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility to  society  and  the  unwillingness  to  be  a  social 
criminal,  the  sense  of  outrage  at  contaminating  the  springs 
of  birth,  fidelity  to  the  wife  or  the  husband  or  the  children 
that  are  to  be.  With  still  another,  the  religious  motive 
may  prevail :  the  manly  fear  of  God,  old-fashioned  horror 
of  sin,  a  passion  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  We 
may  strengthen  these  various  motives  by  the  aid  of  good 
and  wise  people.  The  physician  may  emphasize  the 
physical  and  broaden  the  scope  of  information,  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  physical  director,  the  Campfire  Girls  guardian, 
the  camp  director  may  help  the  ambition  for  clean  bodily 
vigor;  the  pastor  and  the  church  may  appeal  to  the  re- 
ligious feelings  and  decisions;  busy  companionship  with 
noble  young  men  and  unselfish  women  will  enlarge  the 
social  ideal  and  call  forth  the  influence  of  hero-worship. 
Frequent  and  wholesome  social  meetings  of  boys  and 
girls  in  the  home  will  tend  to  take  the  place  of  unrestrained 
conviviality  and  clandestine  meetings. 

"  No  virtue  is  safe,"  says  Dr.  E.  O.  Sisson,  "  that  is  not 
enthusiastic."  We  do  not  expect  our  young  people  to 
become  purity  crusaders,  but  we  do  want  a  quiet,  settled 
allegiance  to  the  side  of  honor.  In  the  Knights  of  King 
Arthur,  a  fraternity  with  a  separate  sisterhood  found  in 
many  of  our  churches,  young  folks,  in  one  of  the  degrees, 
without  saying  very  much  about  it,  take  a  compact  of 
chastity,  and  the  knightly  ideal  and  romance  has  been 


84         CHILD   STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

found  effective  in  maintaining  it.  Still  better  is  it 
for  tempted  young  people  to  save  themselves  by  serving 
others.  "  For  their  sakes,"  said  the  Master,  "  I  conse- 
crate myself,"  and  to  be  an  elder  brother  or  sister  to 
younger  boys  and  girls  not  only  potently  helps  self-mastery 
at  the  time,  but  acts  as  a  guiding  motive  long  after  the 
special  connection  has  ceased. 

Here  again  the  family  ideal,  which  was  helpful  in  the 
earliest  instruction,  continues  to  be  central  in  adolescent 
discipline.  Carried  on  into  marriage,  it  is  the  best  guar- 
antee of  a  pure  and  unselfish  home  life  and  a  wise  and 
loving  nurture  of  children. 

Reading  References 
Two  valuable  books  upon  the  importance  of  sex  instruction  are  Wile: 
"  Sex  Education,"  and  Foster:  "  The  Social  Emergency."  The  latter 
contains  separate  chapters  on  different  phases  of  the  matter  by  different 
writers.  The  following  books  will  be  found  helpful  to  use  with  children 
of  the  ages  indicated: 

To  Use  With  Children  Up  to  Eight 

Morley's  "  The  Spark  of  Life." 
Chapman's  "  How  Shall  I  Tell  My  Child?  " 

To  Use  With  Boys  and  Girls  From  Nine  to  Fourteen 
Hall's  "  From  Youth  into  Manhood." 
Lowry's  "  Truths  "  (for  boys). 
Howard's  "  Confidential  Chats  with  Boys." 
Lowry's  "Confidence  "  (for  girls). 

To  Use  With  Youth  Over  Fourteen 
Smith's  "  The  Three  Gifts  of  Life  "  (for  girls). 
Hood's  "  For  Girls  and  the  Mothers  of  Girls." 
Latimer's  "  The  Changing  Girl." 
Hall's  "  From  Youth  into  Manhood." 
Will  son's  "  The  American  Boy  and  the  Social  Evil." 
Hall's  "  The  Strength  of  Ten." 
Goddard's  "  The  Kallikak  Family  "  (giving  the  eugenic  motive). 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE   IMAGINATION 

One  important  mistake  is  commonly  made  as  to  the  na- 
ture of  imagination.  Many  persons,  for  example,  would 
state  the  difference  between  memory  and  imagination  as 
this:  that  in  memory  we  recall  things  as  they  were,  and  in 
imagination  represent  things  as  they  might  be.  By  this  is 
usually  meant  the  unordered  kind  of  thinking  which  we 
call  day-dreaming,  which  is  only  one  kind  and  that  the  less 
important  kind  of  imagination.  It  is  the  passive  side. 
Even  in  day-dreaming,  the  things  which  we  think  might 
be  are  all  based  upon  the  things  that  are.  Even  the 
most  unreal  fancy  is  composed  of  fragments  of  fact. 
Your  witch  who  rides  on  a  broomstick  in  your  visions 
and  performs  all  kinds  of  magic  has  a  human  face, 
carries  a  real  broomstick  and  in  her  magic  weaves  to- 
gether a  number  of  things  that  have  really  happened. 
But  active  or  constructive  imagination  is  based  even  more 
thoroughly  upon  fact.  In  a  child's  play,  which  is  his 
chief  way  of  expressing  his  constructive  imagination,  the 
larger  part  of  his  action  consists  in  imitating  what  he  has 
seen  done  by  adults,  and  the  unreality  is  chiefly  in  his 
turning  things  to  imaginary  uses,  as  a  stick  into  a  horse,  or 
a  doll  into  a  child.  But  he  never  does  anything,  even 
in  his  most  fanciful  play,  that  he  has  not  seen  or  heard  of 
in  its  elements  at  least.  Imagination,  then,  as  Bolton 
says,  "  is  simply  a  special  kind  of  recall — in  the  form  of 
images."  It  differs  from  memory  in  that  it  includes  the 
future  and  the  present  as  well  as  the  past.  You  can 
imagine  tomorrow's  dinner,  you  cannot  remember  it. 

We  begin  to  see  that  imagination  is  not  merely  a  charm 
of  the  mind,  as  poetic  fancy  is  of  the  mind  of  a  child.  It  is 
of  very  practical  import.  The  child  thinks  largely  imagi- 
natively, that  is,  photographically.     All  that  he  sees  and 

85 


86         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD    TRAINING 

hears  becomes  his  collection  of  films.  He  develops  them 
b}r  play  and  they  become  experience.  We  may  agree 
that  Stanley  Hall  is  right  in  saying  that  for  a  number  of 
years  the  imagination  is  the  chief  means  of  training,  and 
that  the  chief  additional  need  of  the  child  is  that  his  mind 
be  provided  with  rich  material  to  stimulate  his  imagina- 
tion, and  that  he  should  work  this  out  and  express  it  in 
free  play.  Since  education  aims  at  all  stages  to  help  the 
child  form  character,  we  are  glad  to  utilize  the  imagina- 
tion at  every  stage  because  it  is  immensely  important  for 
character-formation. 

Imagination  and  Initiative 

Through  free  play  the  child  gets  possession  of  a  great 
variety  of  experiences,  not  only  those  of  his  own  parents 
and  intimates,  but  those  of  the  race.  In  the  chasing, 
hunting,  exploring,  competitive,  home-making  and  dra- 
matic plays  of  childhood,  he  reproduces  much  of  the  race 
life.  He  is  "  studying  history  "  unconsciously  but  more 
really  than  he  ever  will  through  books.  It  is  both  fortu- 
nate and  valuable  that  every  new  generation  of  children 
likes  to  play  the  old  games.  The  wise  parent  will  supple- 
ment such  play  by  story-telling  that  covers  a  long  range 
of  human  experience  both  in  past  achievements  and  in 
present  conduct. 

The  unimaginative  child  is  usually  the  child  who  has 
not  played  widely.  Having  had  but  limited  experiences, 
he  goes  forth  into  the  real  world  with  timidity;  he  cannot 
interpret  the  daily  future  by  his  past;  having  met  and 
conquered  few  difficulties  he  is  unready  and  uncourageous 
for  fresh  ones,  and  in  emergencies  he  is  helpless.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  child  who  has  photographed  vividly 
everything  around  him  has  stocked  up  not  only  in  experi- 
ence, but  in  pluck  and  self-reliance.  The  farm  boy,  even 
the  leader  of  a  street  gang,  has  more  capacity  for  under- 
taking and  achieving  than  the  child  who  has  always 
stayed  in  a  flat  or  kept  close  to  a  nurse  or  a  tutor. 


THE  IMAGINATION  87 

Imagination  and  Invention 

We  may  go  even  further  and  say  that  not  only  the  ca- 
pacity of  meeting  new  situations  but  that  of  inventing 
new  combinations  is  inherent  in  the  imagination.  The 
poet's  "  fine  frenzy  "  is  not  baseless.  He  takes  the  facts 
of  life  and  combines  them  with  a  fresh  vision  or  insight. 
He  plods  to  mastery  of  many  facts  and  then  has  the  vision 
to  make  a  new  combination,  to  add  an  untried  element, 
to  attach  a  new  adjustment.  So  when  we  encourage 
imagination,  particularly  constructive  imagination,  we 
are  not  stimulating  mere  dreamers;  we  are  doing  one  of 
the  most  practical  things  in  the  world.  The  freshest, 
most  effective  achievements  in  science  and  business  come 
from  men  of  imagination. 

An  Aid  to  Joy 

The  joy  which  imagination  adds  to  life  is  special  for 
each  period.  In  childhood  it  rejoices  in  fairies  and 
wonder-stories,  rejoices  even  in  its  self-created  terrors; 
revels  in  its  own  fantastic  grotesqueries.  It  is  perhaps 
the  baselessness  and  .unreasonableness  of  childish  imagin- 
ings that  make  us  impatient  with  them. 

But  the  imagination  in  adolescence  is  more  closely  re- 
lated to  fact.  It  dismisses  fairyland,  but  creates  its  own, 
idealizing  the  events  of  daily  life,  glorifying  its  favorites 
into  heroes,  recreating  the  past  of  history  and  prophesying 
a  future  heaven  on  earth. 

In  manhood  imagination  is  more  sober  but  still  joyous. 
It  flames  in  the  period  of  courtship;  it  glows  in  the  days 
and  nights  when  the  youth  is  discovering  himself  and 
his  world  and  his  relationship  to  it.  What  the  mind  has 
enjoyed  weaving  in  imagination  is  now  wrought  out  into 
music  and  art,  into  stone  and  wood,  into  the  actualities 
of  business  and  commerce. 

An  Aid  to  Truth 

At  first,  imagination  seems  to  be  the  foe  of  truth,  as 
the  child  gets  confused  in  his  effort  to  distinguish  what 


88         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

he  sees  from  what  he  dreams,  and  indeed  this  confusion 
may  become  serious  unless  he  is  drilled  to  see  as  "  stories  " 
the  fancies  that  are  distinct  from  what  truly  has  happened. 
But  later  imagination  becomes  the  handmaid  of  truth. 
After  the  child  has  outgrown  his  literal  belief  in  Santa 
Claus,  that  myth  and  its  celebration  continue  to  give  him, 
through  his  imagination,  a  clearer  idea  of  the  Christmas 
spirit  of  joyous  giving  than  he  could  ever  get  with  mere 
prose.  After  the  scientist  has  gathered  all  the  facts,  it 
takes  the  philosopher's  constructive  imagination,  with  its 
broad  outlook  that  sees  over  all  the  particulars,  to  inter- 
pret it.  The  poets  of  "  The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  " 
and  "  Paul  Revere's  Ride  "  have  given  us  more  truth 
about  those  events  than  the  annalists  who  collected  every 
detail. 

As  an  Aid  to  Workmanship 
How  could  the  artist  ever  have  painted  this  beautiful 
picture  had  not  his  eye  already  seen  it?  Did  ever  a 
composer  write  a  piece  of  music  that  his  inner  ear  had  not 
already  heard?  Could  a  craftsman  execute  an  intricate 
piece  of  work  over  which  his  fingers  had  not  already 
imaginatively  passed  ?  Are  not  fashions  forecasted,  harvests 
sown,  discoveries  made  by  men  not  merely  of  fact,  but  of 
imagination?  The  men  who  think  themselves  utterly 
practical  are  often  most  imaginative. 

As  an  Aid  to  Morals 

If  imagination  is  an  aid  to  truth-seeing,  it  is  also  a  help 
to  true  living.  One  must  be  able  to  hold  an  ideal  life  in 
his  imagination  if  he  is  to  live  ideally.  We  usually  do  this 
by  becoming  acquainted  with  some  fine  real  person.  The 
imagination,  then,  both  glorifies  this  character  by  visual- 
izing its  many  noble  deeds  and  their  influence  and  analyzes 
it  by  picturing  the  splendid  purposes  which  inspired  them. 
Thus  it  plots  out  its  own  life  plan  and  marks  the  specifica- 
tions. 

Imagination  and  Social  Adjustment 

Imagination  is  an  aid  not  only  to  the  life  of  the  individ- 
ual, but  also  in  living  the  social  life.     "  Put  yourself  in  his 


THE  IMAGINATION  89 

place  "  is  one  of  the  finest  feats  of  the  imagination  and 
one  of  the  first  steps  in  social  morality.  Most  prejudice, 
ill  feeling  and  hate  are  due  to  the  lack  of  just  this  quality 
of  imagination.  The  imaginative  child  who  plays  alone 
is  defective  here.  The  child  who  plays  socially  is  greatly 
helped  in  learning  this  important  lesson.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  most  of  our  great  social  problems  will 
be  in  the  way  of  solution  as  soon  as  the  majority  of  our 
people  have  acquired  social  imagination. 

Varieties  of  Imagination 

Perhaps  the  reason  we  have  not  recognized  the  scope 
of  the  imagination  in  daily  life  is  because  we  do  not  realize 
through  how  many  of  the  senses  it  expresses  itself. 

We  think  of  the  imagination  as  chiefly  at  work  through 
the  sight.  "  The  poet's  eye  in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling  "  sees 
sights  that  never  were  on  sea  or  land.  Our  own  fancies 
are  usually  day-dreams,  of  things  that  we  seem  to  see, 
based  upon  that  which  our  physical  eyes  have  seen.  But 
while  at  least  half  of  us  are  eye-minded,  many  are  ear- 
minded,  and  their  imaginations  are  most  sensitive  to 
musical  sounds.  There  is  an  imagination  that  is  awak- 
ened through  the  sense  of  smell.  These  are  all  related,  so 
that,  for  instance,  a  familiar  odor  may  stimulate  us  to  see 
again,  as  with  our  own  eyes,  a  familiar  scene,  whose  ap- 
pearance as  well  as  odor  is  recalled  to  mind.  But  imagi- 
nation works  also  through  the  fingers  as  well  as  those 
senses  that  center  in  the  head.  There  are  persons  who 
cannot  be  satisfied  when  they  see  a  new  apparatus  or 
machine  until  they  touch  it  or  make  it  go.  So  there  is  a 
tactile  and  a  motile,  as  well  as  a  visual  imagination. 
These  work  together,  also,  since  the  hand  reinforces  the 
eye  and  the  artisan  who  would  reconstruct  or  improve  a 
tool  that  he  has  seen  and  handled  needs  both  senses  to 
make  his  dream  come  true. 

How  to  Make  Imagination  Constructive 
Psychologists  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  there  are 
two  kinds  of   imagination,  passive  and  active,  or  repro- 


00         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

ductive  and  constructive.  Day-dreaming  is  an  example 
of  passive  imagination,  any  constructive  craft  of  active 
imagination. 

Evidently  the  latter  is  more  valuable,  for  it  gets  some- 
thing done.  We  perhaps  do  not  realize  that  it  is  also  more 
enjoyable.  A  child  likes  to  hear  a  story  about  a  brave 
knight  or  his  adventures,  but  he  enjoys  much  more  to  be 
that  brave  knight,  by  playing  on  his  rocking  horse  or 
with  his  stick  loose  among  the  daisies. 

These  facts  suggest  some  rules  for  encouraging  con- 
structive imagination. 

1.  Encourage  action.  Tell  as  many  imaginative  stories 
as  you  will,  but  try  to  show  the  child  how  to  retell  them  and 
dramatize  them.  When  he  expresses  some  fanciful  idea, 
encourage  him  to  draw  it  or  to  paint  it.  Especially  en- 
courage the  writing  out  of  his  fancies  when  he  is  old  enough 
to  write.  These  deeds  will  not  only  tend  to  regulate  his 
accidental,  garrulous,  half -formed  images,  but  to  make 
them  more  clear  and  more  useful.  Among  older  boys  and 
girls  especially,  we  need  not  only  to  endeavor  to  substi- 
tute strong,  pure,  imaginative  books  for  sensational  and 
irrational  ones,  but  to  try  to  get  the  young  people  out 
from  books  into  real  doing  and  achieving.  It  is  pretty 
hard  for  the  boy  who  has  seen  wealth  gained  as  easily  as 
by  "  Get-Rich-Quick  Wallingford  "  or  for  a  girl  who  has 
seen  maidenly  charms  so  immediately  bewitching  as 
stated  by  Laura  Jane  Libbey,  to  meet  the  actualities  of 
life. 

2.  Appeal  to  all  the  senses  and  offer  more  sensations. 
Madame  Montessori  omits  stories  in  her  House  of  Child- 
hood, since  she  says  she  wants  imagination  based  on  facts 
of  actual  experience,  but  she  is  very  ingenious  about  multi- 
plying sense  expressions.  We  may  follow  her  thus  far, 
for,  as  we  have  shown,  imagination  works  through  all  the 
sense  organs  and  there  are  no  doubt  possibilities  in  en- 
riching the  imagination  of  the  child  through  the  nose  and 
taste  as  well  as  through  the  ear  and  eye  that  are  un- 
dreamed of.  Especially  is  it  possible  to  develop  a  race  of 
men  who,  if  they  be  not  artists  or  craftsmen,  may  brighten 


THE  IMAGINATION  91 

the  monotony  of  modern  work  through  the  imaginative 
use  of  their  fingers.  We  do  not,  however,  agree  with  her 
that  imagination  is  based  entirely  upon  material  facts. 
Surely  acts  and  experiences  revealed  in  stories  appeal  even 
more  strongly  to  the  child  and  have  even  more  potent 
effect  upon  his  own  activities.  Love  of  the  beautiful  seen 
in  pictures  or  even  as  imagined  through  stories  is  just  as 
essential  as  sense  experiences  or  the  technical  training  of 
the  hands. 

In  the  effort  to  appeal  to  the  senses  and  to  offer  more 
sensations,  we  have  many  simple  opportunities  in  the 
home.  We  should  learn  how  much  better  are  home-made 
than  store-bought  toys.  A  child  can  do  more  things,  for 
instance,  which  will  train  his  sense  perception  and  de- 
velop his  imagination  with  a  pile  of  blocks  of  different 
sizes  and  shapes  than  with  many  more  elaborate  toys.  In 
the  purchase  of  toys,  we  should  select  those  that  pre- 
suppose inquisitiveness  on  the  part  of  the  child.  Simple 
toys  and  elementary  things  rather  than  complete  things 
are  desirable.  We  should  avoid  mechanical  toys  which 
the  child  merely  looks  at  and  can  do  nothing  with  except, 
perhaps,  take  apart.  Some  parents  buy  inexpensive 
mechanical  toys  so  that  the  children  may  take  them  apart 
and  thus  learn  something  from  them.  We  should  help 
the  child  to  make  toys;  that  is,  we  should  provide  the 
material  and  tools,  give  some  initial  suggestion  through 
story  or  illustration,  be  ready  when  help  is  demanded  to 
show  how  to  do  the  next  thing — but  do  not  do  anything 
which  the  child  is  able  to  do  himself.  We  should  help  the 
child  to  invent  new  plays  with  common  things  and  with 
old  toys.  In  all  this,  we  are  not  to  do  the  inventing  but 
simply  start  him  going. 

Nothing  is  more  educative  to  the  imagination  than 
dramatic  play.  Parents  do  not  seem  to  realize  how 
general  and  how  simple  a  thing  it  is.  The  child  him- 
self, after  he  is  three  or  four  years  old,  usually  engages  in 
this  play  of  his  own  volition.  He  draws  a  cart  and  sup- 
poses that  he  is  a  horse;  he  visualizes  the  life  of  his  dolls. 
But  we  can  show  him  how  to  work  out  a  war  game  with 


92         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

his  soldiers;  we  can,  by  furnishing  some  discarded  gar- 
ments, help  him  and  his  playmates  to  perform  charades 
and  simple  dramas.  A  lady  in  Kansas  made  a  set  of 
dolls  out  of  bottles  representing  the  Mother  Goose  char- 
acters and  the  whole  village  of  children  immediately 
started  not  only  to  imitate  her  handicraft,  but  also  to 
work  out  dramas  in  this  mimic  world  of  play,  and  at 
least  three  years  after  her  departure  from  the  village,  they 
were  still  performing  her  plays  and  originating  ones  of 
their  own. 

3.  Appreciate  the  imaginativeness  of  a  child.  The 
early  ramblings  of  a  child  are  tiresome,  his  first  efforts  at 
art  or  construction  are  inadequate,  and  it  is  easy  to  tell 
him  to  keep  still  and  to  pass  over  his  masterpieces  with 
scorn.  It  is  possible  to  look  hopefully  and  with  interest 
upon  his  productions  and,  quietly  holding  him  to  his  best, 
to  encourage  him  until  the  time  when  his  work  shall 
become  a  lifelong  joy  to  him  and  a  satisfaction  to  us. 

The  world  always  has  enough  artisans  and  drudgers. 
It  needs  more  men  who  are  artists  at  least  in  the  conduct 
of  their  lives  and  who  sing  at  their  work. 

Reading  References 

A  most  rich  and  useful  chapter  upon  imagination  is  in  Bolton:  "  Prin- 
ciples of  Education,"  464-519.  The-  importance  of  the  story  as  a  help  in 
training  the  imagination  is  suggested  in  Partridge:  "  Stories  and  Story 
Telling,"  chapter  V,  and  Forbush:  "  Manual  of  Stories,"  chapters  III,  X. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  THE  INSTINCTS 

The  writer  has  just  been  watching  with  interest  some 
small  chickens  which,  on  account  of  early  hatching, 
were  kept  for  several  days  in  a  pen  close  to  the  hen  and 
now  have  scattered  far  and  wide,  while  she  is  still  confined 
in  the  yard.  The  earnest  and  masterly  fashion  in  which 
they  scratch  up  the  earth  with  their  feet  is  most  amusing, 
and  is,  since  they  could  have  had  no  instruction  on  the 
wooden  floor  of  the  pen,  truly  amazing.  We  say  that 
this  impulse  of  chickens  to  scratch  is  an  instinct. 

We  watch  a  young  baby  struggle  to  sit  up  in  his  crib 
and  after  he  has  dragged  himself  to  an  upright  position 
look  eagerly  over  the  side.  Nobody  has  taught  him  to 
do  this,  and  his  act  seems  parallel  with  that  of  the  chickens. 
It  is  instinctive. 

In  each  case  we  have  an  unlearned  tendency.  In 
each  case  there  was  present  a  situation  wThich  acted  as 
a  stimulus.  In  each  case,  when  we  ask  ourselves  why 
the  child  or  the  chicken  acted  as  he  did,  we  can  think 
of  no  better  explanation  than  to  say  he  felt  like  it.  In 
other  words,  given  a  certain  situation,  a  child  or  a  chicken 
feels  the  impulse  to  react  toward  it  and  does  so  in  a  way 
that  involves  neither  education,  foresight  nor  reasoning. 

The  Classification  of  the  Instincts 
Many  classifications  of  the  instincts  have  been  at- 
tempted, none  of  which  is  perfectly  satisfactory.  The 
best  basis  of  classification  seems  to  be  that  suggested 
by  Thorndike,  which  groups  them  according  to  the 
situations  that  evoke  them.  Situations  involving  colors, 
sounds,  movements,  etc.,  evoke  responses  which  produce 
strong  effects  upon  the  sense-organs.  Objects  presented 
close  to  a  young  child,  not  too  large  or  terrifying,  produce 

93 


94         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

the  response  of  the  endeavor  to  lay  hold  upon  them. 
We  may  call  this  the  grasping  instinct.  If  they  are  not 
repulsive  or  terrifying,  the  child  tends  to  look  at  them, 
examine  them,  feel  of  them  in  different  ways  and  go 
through  a  variety  of  experiments  with  them.  This  may 
be  called  the  manipulative  instinct,  or  the  constructive 
and  destructive  instinct.  Add  to  this  a  slight  measure 
of  experience  and  a  trace  of  habit,  and  we  have  what 
we  may  call  the  instinct  of  curiosity.  If  these  and  other 
responses  are  not  because  of  necessity  but  rather  of 
pleasurable  satisfaction,  or  if  they  involve  some  measure 
of  experimental  imitation,  we  have  the  instinct  of  play. 
Then  there  are  instincts  that  appear  not  so  much  as 
the  result  of  response  to  material  objects  as  to  situations 
offered  by  the  behavior  of  other  persons.  Sociability 
or  gregariousness,  mastery  and  submission,  showing  off, 
emulation,  imitation,  motherly  behavior,  are  all  instincts 
which  we  may  group  as  social  instincts. 

The  Importance  of  the  Instincts 
It  is  certainly  of  importance  to  know  what  constitutes 
"  the  original  stuff  of  human  nature."  This  stuff,  how- 
ever, is  not  to  be  compared  to  dust,  man's  traditional 
constituent,  but  to  something  alive.  These  untaught 
impulses  are  the  tendrils  by  which  the  child  reaches  out 
to  take  hold  of  the  world  around  him;  they  are,  like 
tendrils,  prophetic  of  the  directions  in  which  the  child 
is  trying  to  grow.  The  instincts  of  a  child  are  also  his 
accessibilities,  the  doors  at  which  we  may  knock  and 
which  we  may  be  sure  he  will  open  to  us. 

One  of  the  most  important  discoveries  of  education  is 
that  each  instinct  has  its  especially  favorable  period  for 
exercise.  Educators  call  these  "  the  nascent  periods." 
'  There  is,"  says  George  E.  Johnson,  "  a  happy  time  for 
fixing  skill  in  drawing,  making  boys  collectors  in  natural 
history  and  presently  dissectors  and  botanists.  There 
is  a  time  when  boys  love  and  must  learn  to  play  ball,  to 
swim  and  skate  or  be  deficient  in  such  sports  and  the 
broad  training  they  give  all  their  lives;  so  there  is  a  time 


SOME   PROBLEMS   OF   THE   INSTINCTS  95 

when  the  habit  of  activity,  that  is,  the  habit  of  work  and 
the  enjoyment  of  work,  may  be  formed."  Bolton  tells 
us  that  the  nascent  period  for  acquiring  a  speaking 
mastery  of  foreign  languages  is  before  ten,  while  the  best 
time  to  learn  to  read  and  write  begins  only  with  the  tenth 
year.  These  and  other  discoveries  concerning  nascent 
periods  are  bound  to  have  a  sweeping  influence  upon 
school  curricula,  which  will  make  great  and  happy  econo- 
mies in  learning. 

The  Importance  of  the  Instincts  to  the  Parent 
These  facts  mean  a  great  deal  to  parents.  Those  who 
see  the  importance  of  the  home  education  of  children 
will  wish  to  know  all  that  can  be  known  about  the  instincts 
so  that  they  may  take  advantage  of  them  in  the  best 
way  of  training  their  children.  All  parents  need  to  learn 
their  import  so  that  they  may  not  misunderstand  their 
children.  Some  of  the  early  manifestations  of  the  in- 
stincts are  annoying  to  adults,  and  therefore  seem  to 
them  to  be  signs  of  mischief  or  peril  in  their  children's 
lives.  The  instinct  to  handle  and  take  apart  and  destroy, 
the  longing  to  be  in  water  and  dirt,  the  tendency  to  fight, 
are  examples  of  acts  which  are  really  expressions  of  the 
desirable  instincts  of  curiosity  and  self-assertion.  They 
are  like  the  tadpole's  tail,  that  is  unsightly  and  bound 
to  disappear,  which,  however,  if  amputated,  would  prevent 
the  evolution  of  the  complete  frog,  and  which,  if  allowed 
to  attenuate,  is  destined  to  be  absorbed  into  the  com- 
pleteness of  the  frog.  If  we  amputate  an  instinct,  we 
may  prevent  to  some  degree  the  completeness  of  the  life 
of  a  man. 

What  we  have  to  do  is  to  discover,  if  we  may,  the 
instincts  that  are  being  expressed  by  our  child's  acts,  and 
to  take  advantage  of  these  expressions  at  the  appropriate 
time  and  in  the  most  skilful  way.  The  most  skilful  way 
usually  is  to  guide  such  an  expression  toward  some  fine, 
attractive  and  useful  purpose.  For  instance,  recognizing, 
in  the  annoying  tendency  of  a  little  child  to  get  himself 
all  wet  and  dirty  by  making  mud  pies,  an  expression  of 


96  CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

the  instinct  of  craftsmanship  in  the  direction  of  sculpture, 
we  can  sometimes  eliminate  the  dirt  and  water  by  provid- 
ing plasticine  or  modelling  clay,  and  we  can,  by  furnishing 
models  and  giving  a  few  suggestions,  interest  him  in- 
tensely in  much  more  elaborate,  skilful  and  permanent 
representations  of  his  ideas. 

Those  who  hold  what  is  known  as  the  recapitulation 
theory  of  human  development,  the  theory  that  the  child 
in  his  instincts  reproduces  the  race  life,  are  tempted  by 
an  attractive  analogy  to  allow  an  unnecessary  lingering 
of  the  child  in  the  lower  and  uneducated  levels.  Man's 
original  equipment,  as  Thorndike  reminds  us,  adapts 
him,  directly,  only  for  such  life  as  might  be  led  by  a 
family  group  of  wild  men  among  the  brute  forces,  animals 
and  other  family  groups  of  wild  men.  But  we  live  in  a 
different  world,  for  which  this  original  stuff  of  human 
nature  alone  is  not  sufficient  and  against  which  it  even 
rebels.  The  instinct  for  keeping  clean,  for  example, 
hardly  appears  in  some  boys  before  adolescence,  and  we 
can  keep  them  washed  up  only  against  their  violent  pro- 
tests and  in  spite  of  their  frequent  neglects.  But  we 
commit  no  sin  in  anticipating  the  evidence  of  this  instinct 
and  in  establishing  a  habit  which  shall  become  almost  as 
automatic  in  its  action  as  an  original  instinct. 

Indeed  we  must  do  with  the  instincts  what  we  do  with 
the  forms  of  life  that  show  above  the  soil  in  our  gardens. 
Some  of  them  we  may  let  grow  as  they  are;  a  few  must 
be  rooted  out  by  withholding  the  nourishment  (the 
situations)  that  would  call  them  forth,  and  we  must 
substitute  for  others  desirable  habits  that  shall  grow  in 
their  places. 

Taking  Advantage  of  the  Instincts 
What  has  already  been  said  suggests  three  convictions : 

1.  If  the  instincts  represent  original  strength,  we  may 
help  a  child  greatly  if  we  can  let  him  in  some  way  act 
out  what  he  is,  in  the  service  of  knowledge-getting. 

2.  We  shall  do  this  most  effectively  if  we  use  the 
highest  and  not  the  lowest  manifestation  of  the  instinct. 


SOME   PROBLEMS   OF  THE   INSTINCTS  97 

3.  We  can  supplement  the  development  of  the  instincts 
by  the  development  with  them  of  right  habits. 

We  may  illustrate  this  by  what  is  probably  the  most 
important  and  the  most  valuable  of  the  instincts,  the 
instinct  of  play.  (Chapter  XVII  is  given  to  "  Play.") 
Two  children  of  the  same  sex  and  of  similar  age  have 
the  instinct  to  play  and  the  situations  that  stimulate 
them  to  play  are  very  much  alike.  But  the  play  instinct 
is  not  a  simple  but  a  complex  one,  because  the  very 
originality  it  involves  gives  rise  to  new  situations  which 
stimulate  other  instincts.  So  one  child  may,  if  he  is 
not  watched  and  guided,  express  himself  through  his 
play  in  most  undesirable  and  unworthy  fashion,  while 
the  other  may  be  protected  from  such  outbreaks  and  be 
led  to  get  the  best  out  of  his  play.  One  child  may  give 
vent  to  expressions  of  anger,  destructiveness,  selfishness, 
carelessness,  culminating  in  physical  exhaustion  and 
misery,  while  the  other  may  learn  gradually  to  inhibit 
his  anger,  build  or  rearrange  instead  of  destroying, 
share  with  his  comrades  and  take  care  of  his  playthings, 
and  come  to  the  end  of  the  day  comfortably  tired  and 
happy.  The  better  result  may  be  obtained,  not  by 
constant  dictation  of  the  play,  but  chiefly  by  a  provident 
arrangement  of  the  situation.  For  instance,  unfinished 
toys  and  playthings,  such  as  blocks  and  boards,  that 
suggest  an  inexhaustible  variety  of  building  operations, 
themselves  lead  to  peaceable  construction,  sociable 
co-operation  and  proud  care  of  the  finished  product. 

The  mother  can  further  make  a  day's  play  profitable 
by  arranging  some  exclusive  place  where  the  toys  may 
be  stored  at  the  close  of  the  day,  by  calling  the  child  to 
put  them  away,  at  first  with  her  co-operation,  just  before 
he  is  too  tired  to  be  willing  to  do  so,  and  so  build  up  a 
habit  as  to  the  way  to  end  the  play  that  shall  be  just  as 
instinctive  as  the  play  itself.  She  can,  of  course,  do  this 
most  easily  if  she  begins  early. 

Some  Further  Suggestions 
1.    Whenever  a  new  impulse  appears  in  a  child's  life, 


98         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

we  should  ask  earnestly :  What  does  it  mean  ?  Why  does 
the  child  feel  like  doing  what  he  does?  How  can  this 
impulse  be  made  use  of  for  good  ? 

2.  We  must  remember  that  an  instinct  may  have 
worth  for  the  child  at  his  stage  which  would  have  no 
value  to  us  at  our  stage  of  development.  The  boy, 
says  Arthur  Holmes,  wants  "  to  play  exactly  the  games 
and  to  have  the  toys  his  wise  parent  now  considers  a 
waste  of  juvenile  time  that  might  be  employed  in  learning 
something  useful,  something  that  would  eventually 
enable  the  boy  to  gain  a  larger  place  among  his  future 
adult  fellows.  The  untutored  father  cannot  for  a 
moment  imagine  that  success  in  life  can  be  measured  in 
terms  of  a  boy's  world;  that  the  boy  has  a  real  world  of 
his  own;  that  in  that  world  he  has  as  much  moral  right 
to  succeed  in  his  way  as  his  father  has  to  succeed  in  his 
world  in  his  way." 

3.  Whenever  we  must  repress  an  instinct,  the  best  way 
is  not  by  direct  destruction,  but  by  playing  a  higher 
instinct  against  it,  or  still  better,  some  ideal  against  it. 
For  instance,  the  low  instinct  to  avoid  physical  pain 
would  be  conquered  not  by  flogging  a  child  until  he  was 
used  to  it,  but  by  developing  the  instinct  to  camp  out, 
in  which  some  physical  discomfort  would  be  an  incident, 
or  by  stimulating  the  athletic  ideal,  so  that  the  boy 
would  meet  pain  in  a  strenuous  game  without  flinching. 

To  deal  with  the  instincts  requires  an  especially  earnest 
endeavor  to  see  life  from  the  child's  standpoint  without 
at  the  same  time  losing  sight  of  the  high  goal  toward 
which  the  child  is  to  move. 

Reading  References 

Thorndike:  "  Education,"  V.  King:  "  The  Psychology  of  Child 
Development,"  21-25.  Bolton:  "  Principles  of  Education,"  VIII.  Kirk- 
patrick:  "  Fundamentals  of  Child  Study,"  IV.  These  references  include 
various  modern  statements  and  classifications  of  the  instincts,  of  which 
Kirkpatrick's  is  the  most  full,  but  Thorndike's  the  most  suggestive. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
DEALING  WITH  THE  EMOTIONS 

The  child's  feeling  life  is  so  intense  and  subject  to  such 
variations  of  pleasure  and  pain  that  it  presents  some 
very  real  problems.  The  close  connection  of  this  topic 
with  the  last  is  seen  in  such  a  phrase  as  "  the  instinctive 
emotion  of  fear."     Many  of  the  emotions  are  instinctive. 

Pleasure  and  pain  are  important  both  as  symptoms  and 
as  influences.  Many  physical  pains,  in  the  vital  organs 
and  special  sense-organs,  are  useful  as  indicating  wrong 
use  or  disease.  Pains  from  external  objects  which  the 
young  child  handles  ignorantly  —  such  as  the  stove,  the 
cat,  the  hammer,  etc. —  are  useful  as  warnings.  Whole- 
some physical  delights,  on  the  contrary,  are  signs  of  health 
or  evidences  of  hopeful  aptitudes.  When  a  child  seizes 
upon  a  new  toy  or  device  or  game  with  avidity  and  pa- 
tience, we  ought  to  regard  it  as  a  symptom  that  he  is 
learning  something  or  is  finding  himself.  Healthy  physi- 
cal pleasures  —  in  food,  drink,  deep  breathing,  exercise, 
in  sensations  from  colors,  sounds,  perfumes,  contacts, 
pleasing  sights  and  a  general  sense  of  well-being  —  are 
stimulating  to  joy  in  life,  to  happy,  free  endeavor,  even 
to  gratitude  and  worship.  Though  a  life  completely 
sensuous  and  emotional  sinks  into  languor  and  passiveness, 
yet  the  life  made  keen  to  beauty  and  worth,  that  dwells 
in  a  wholesome  body  and  that  receives  a  good  balance  of 
mental,  volitional  and  moral  stimuli,  is  not  only  well 
rounded  but  most  efficient.  Happiness  may  be  made  a 
strong  incentive  to  duty  and  goodness. 

Fears 
Some  of  the  fears  of  children  seem  to  come  by  heredity 
from  the  age  when  human  experience  was  full  of  occasions 
for  fear,  and  when  fear  was  the  universal  protective  against 

99 


100        CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD   TRAINING 

danger.  Among  these  are  fears  of  animals,  fear  of  high 
places  and  fear  of  the  dark.  Some  fears  which  men  once 
shared  with  the  animals  may  now  have  ceased  because 
they  are  associated  with  certain  senses  once  used  as 
warnings  that  are  not  now  among  men  so  keenly 
developed.  Bolton  cites  the  paroxysm  of  fear  which  a 
cat  shows  at  the  appearance  of  a  dog,  which  is  not  shown 
by  a  child  perhaps  because  he  has  not  such  a  sudden 
sensation  of  smell.  A  child's  fears  often  have  no  other 
explanation  than  that  sudden  sensations  of  any  sort 
are  paralyzing  to  self-control.  Sudden  and  loud  noises, 
strange  sights  and  unusual  experiences  of  touch  are  all 
alarming  for  this  reason.  A  baby  is  alarmed  by  a  dis- 
torted face.  At  an  early  period  fears  are  stimulated 
through  the  higher  mental  processes,  particularly  through 
imagination,  and  the  telling  of  stories  of  goblins,  ghosts 
and  bogie  men,  foolishly  done  either  for  amusement  or  to 
enforce  obedience,  produces  harmful  consequences.  A 
child  who  is  exposed  to  such  imaginative  influences  soon 
comes  to  dread  every  new  situation,  and  if  he  is  naturally 
sensitive  is  easily  deprived  of  initiative  and  made  a 
coward. 

E.  P.  St.  John,  discussing  the  relation  of  the  home  to 
a  child's  fears,  divides  them  into  "instinctive  fears," 
"fears  based  on  experience,"  and  "fears  due  to  misunder- 
standing or  imagination."  Regarding  the  first,  the  child 
is  helpless;  we  cannot  therefore  expect  to  eliminate  them 
entirely  but  gradually  to  modify  them  to  such  occasions 
as  are  really  harmless.  It  is  the  fears  due  to  experience 
that  are  in  the  main  serviceable.  Where,  however,  an 
unfortunate  experience  causes  a  needless  fear,  the  peculiar 
circumstances  should  be  explained  by  the  parent,  who 
shows  no  fear  himself,  and  the  child  should  later  be  led 
into  association  with  the  dreaded  object  under  favorable 
conditions.  Concerning  the  fears  due  to  imagination 
or  misunderstanding  —  and  the  misunderstandings  are 
usually  imaginative  —  St.  John  urges  that  the  first  step 
to  correcting  them  is  to  know  exactly  what  the  child 
fears  and  how  the  fear  first  arose.     Then  an  endeavor 


DEALING  WITH  THE  EMOTIONS  101 

may  be  made  toward  a  clear  explanation.  Sometimes 
the  child  must  be  allowed  to  attain  self-command  gradually 
through  growing  knowledge  and  experience. 

Fear  still  has  some  protective  value.  If  it  is  intelligent 
it  restrains  from  perilous  courses.  The  highest  form  of 
fear  is  reverence.  A  reverence  for  authority,  that  is 
not  based  entirely  upon  corporal  punishment,  insures 
the  necessary  obedience  which  must  take  the  place  of 
entire  self-guidance  before  wise  self-guidance  is  possible. 
It  is  for  us  who  train  children  to  endeavor  to  keep  a  careful 
balance  between  foolish  fears  and  foolish  bravado.  Bol- 
ton has  a  simple  chart  in  which  he  suggests  the  results  of 
the  use  or  abuse  of  fear,  as  follows : 

FEAR 
See  !<*»£*•  Cft-*.fg3£. 

leTf^tcEusness  J  *»■**>  **">  1  SSffSU. 

A  child  ought  to  learn  to  fear  wisely  and  effectively. 
He  ought  also  to  learn  to  be  brave  wisely  and  effectively. 

Embarrassment 
There  are  certain  painful  emotions  that  come  to  children 
out  of  their  social  relations.  In  the  presence  of  strangers 
or  of  an  unusual  number  of  adult  acquaintances  they 
become  very  uncomfortable.  They  have  limited  powers 
of  communication  and  not  much  to  say.  When  they  are 
led  into  a  room  where  strangers  are  present,  they  feel 
trapped.  There  are  some  children  who  suffer  under 
even  the  most  gentle  approaches  of  those  with  whom  they 
are  not  familiar.  Part  of  this  shyness  is  a  form  of  self- 
protection.  The  child  who  is  shy  is  in  a  much  more 
hopeful  attitude  than  the  one  who  wants  to  show  off. 
The  shy  child  listens  and  is  still  and  fulfils  Emerson's 
encomium  of  him  who  keeps  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd  the 
sweetness  of  a  perfect  solitude.  If  this  impulse  be  ex- 
treme it  may  be  interpreted  as  an  excess  of  self -conscious- 
ness, and  such  a  child  should  be  encouraged  to  take  the 
viewpoint  and  share  the  activities  of  others. 


102       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Children  are  sensitive  to  ridicule.  Much  of  the  sar- 
casm of  adults  is  not  understood,  and  is  wasted  on 
them,  yet  often  even  the  atmosphere  of  sarcasm  is  wither- 
ing to  a  child.  It  always  implies  superiority  and  a  willing- 
ness to  inflict  pain,  both  of  which  are  the  opposite  of  a 
right  and  loving  parental  attitude.  Because  the  child, 
is  humiliated,  though  he  does  not  know  how,  sarcasm 
works  more  than  any  other  folly  of  parents  to  incite  that 
blindness  of  rage  which  is  too  common  among  children. 

If  wit  has  little  place,  humor  has  much  in  the  training 
of  children.  That  which  distinguishes  humor  from  wit 
is  the  element  of  sympathy.  Children  appear  to  be 
discouragingly  unappreciative  of  parental  wit;  they  are 
invariably  responsive  to  a  parent's  attempts  at  humor. 
If  you  have  failed  in  bringing  a  little  boy  to  the  table  with 
clean  hands,  tell  him  the  familiar  nursery  tale  of  Dirty 
Jack  (in  "My  Picture  Story  Book");  if  you  have  to 
deal  with  a  small  boaster,  give  him  the  history  of  the 
Emperor  Who  Had  Nothing  On  (in  "  Wonder  Stories"). 
Imitate  to  a  sullen  youngster  the  words  and  acts  of  one 
"  Mr.  Grumpy  "  or  engage  him  in  the  merry  game  of 
"  Poor  Pussy."  These  exercises  represent  simply  the 
endeavor  to  expel  undesirable  feelings  by  the  invasion 
of  happy  ones. 

The  sense  of  humor  is  a  distinct  specific  for  the  emotion 
of  embarrassment  because  it  is  an  out-looking  quality. 
Its  possessor  is  not  thinking  how  others  regard  him,  but 
is  himself  an  eager  spectator  of  the  daily  adventure  of 
life.  And  whatever  we  may  do  in  the  home  to  show  the 
ridiculous  side  of  certain  traits  and  actions  without 
naming  the  guilty  party,  whatever  habits  of  pleasantry 
we  can  encourage,  tend  to  help  a  child  see  himself  as  a 
part  of  a  world  that  inspires  cheerful  laughter  and  not 
to  take  himself  too  seriously. 

But  it  is  the  ridicule  of  those  of  their  own  age  that  makes 
the  deepest  impression.  To  children  the  ideals  and  actions 
of  adults  seem  somewhat  distant,  but  the  judgment  of 
their  peers  is  Public  Opinion.  It  covers  every  field  of 
life, — "form"  and  sports,  manlikeness  in  play,  fashion  in 


DEALING  WITH  THE  EMOTIONS  103 

clothes,  personal  mannerisms  and  conduct  and  even  the 
validity  of  home  training.  What  sins  it  remits  are  re- 
mitted and  what  sins  it  retains  are  retained.  We  who 
are  older  cannot  perhaps  do  much  to  alter  the  child's 
viewpoint  here.  Therefore  we  all  the  more  clearly  are 
under  the  necessity  of  watching  the  companionships  of 
the  children  of  whom  we  have  the  care  so  that  their 
young  friends,  if  not  as  sage  as  adults,  may  at  least  be 
sound  and  wholesome. 

Anger 

The  emotion  of  anger  is  one  that  causes  parents  much 
distress  and  frequent  misunderstanding.  It  seems  to 
be  inborn.  Major  says  that  many  children  come  into 
this  world  acting  as  if  they  were  prepared  to  be  angry 
at  any  provocation.  The  earliest  and  most  familiar 
type  of  anger  is  that  against  personal  aggression.  What- 
ever, animate  or  inanimate,  thwarts  a  child  is  likely  to 
start  off  such  ungracious  manifestations  as  uncontrolled 
yelling,  striking  with  the  fists  and  calling  names.  In 
special  cases  sulkiness  and  the  withdrawing  of  affection 
are  the  quieter  ways  of  expressing  this  emotion.  Fight- 
ing even  as  an  expression  of  anger  has  its  own  code. 
Vengeance  is  regarded  as  just  only  among  physical  equals. 

All  fighting  does  not  imply  anger  as  the  chief  impelling 
cause.  During  a  considerable  portion  of  school  life  it 
appears  to  be  a  habit  as  much  as  an  expression  of  passion. 
Quarrelling  is  a  kind  of  game ;  squabbling  as  an  evidence 
of  bravery  is  a  frequent  custom,  and  teasing  is  often  an 
intellectual  exercise  that  seems  to  be  indulged  in  not  so 
much  as  an  expression  of  malice  as  of  enjoying  the  sense 
of  mastery  from  witnessing  the  sudden  displays  of  fear, 
wrath  or  shame  which  it  incites  in  others. 

Jealousy,  that  smouldering  form  of  anger  which  in- 
volves the  comparison  of  one's  self  with  others,  begins 
largely  with  measurements  of  one's  physical  strength 
and  circumstances  with  others,  develops  into  the  particu- 
lar type  associated  with  love  between  the  sexes  and  may 
grow  unto  those  nobler  feelings  as  to  one's  reputation  for 
truth,  decency  and  morality. 


104       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

In  general,  there  appears  to  be  a  steady  broadening 
and  deepening  and  a  diffusion  of  the  emotion  of  anger 
as  the  years  go  on.  The  child  shows  temper  first  at  being 
foiled  or  checked,  then  at  personal  affronts  and  finally 
at  attacks  upon  his  character.  He  passes  from  ex- 
asperation against  persons  to  indignation  against  moral 
wrongs. 

From  these  statements  it  is  evident  that  the  emotion 
of  anger  has  a  legitimate  and  somewhat  important  place 
in  a  human  life.  Unchecked,  it  produces  the  bully  or 
the  savage;  uprooted,  it  would  leave  the  coward  and 
weakling.  Without  it,  tolerance  is  silly,  liberality  is 
unintelligent,  conviction  is  nerveless  and  active  moral 
indignation  is  impossible.  Says  Dr.  George  E.  Partridge, 
upon  the  basis  of  G.  Stanley  Hall:  "  To  have  strong 
passion  held  in  check  creates  the  tension  under  which 
much  of  the  best  work  in  the  world  is  done.  Anger  thus 
becomes  a  stored  energy,  useful  if  properly  conserved, 
but  wasteful  and  harmful  if  not  controlled." 

How  to  Deal  with  Anger 

The  following  suggestions  are  made  concerning  some 
of  the  common  emotional  outbreaks  of  anger  in  the  home. 

As  to  Temper: 

Children  should  not  be  nervously  excited  through  the 
temper  of  their  own  parents. 

They  should  not  have  commands  or  scolding  sprung 
on  them. 

They  should  be  protected  from  teasing,  whether  by 
their  brothers  or  sisters,  parents  or  guests. 

They  should  receive  unvarying  fairness,  and  be  governed 
by  justice  and  not  by  whim.  Any  child  has  a  right  to 
resent  discipline  that  is  without  principle  or  reason. 

They  ought  not  to  be  nagged  or  over-punished  for 
minor  faults. 

They  should  never  be  allowed,  by  expressions  of  temper 
in  crying,  to  win  any  desired  advantage. 

The  influences  of  fatigue,  health  and  the  weather  upon 
temper  being  fully  recognized  by  elders,  children  should 


DEALING  WITH   THE    EMOTIONS  105 

be  protected  under  such  circumstances  from  whatever 
may  disturb  them. 

Per  contra,  the  protection  of  a  child's  health,  the  avoid- 
ance on  the  part  of  parents  of  teasing,  nagging  or  displays 
of  temper,  and  careful  exercising  of  the  child  in  reasonable 
pleasantness  should  be  the  means  for  building  up  a  life 
of  self-control.  Sensible  devices,  on  occasion,  such  as 
diversion,  changing  the  atmosphere,  quiet  solitary  play, 
are  often  helpful.  When  temper  takes  the  form  of 
raging  yelling,  reasoning  and  soothing  are  in  vain.  In 
such  cases  St.  John  recommends,  with  caution,  some  shock 
of  intense  surprise,  such  as  by  a  dash  of  cold  water,  for 
diversion.  To  drag  the  child  forth  to  public  exhibition 
to  his  mates  would  be  effective  with  some.  Where 
yelling  seems  likely  to  proceed  to  the  point  of  exhaustion 
solitude  and  silence  are  the  best  helpers. 

As  to  Sulkiness:  The  pessimistic  type  of  anger  needs 
to  be  immersed  in  an  atmosphere  of  sunshine;  usually 
little  direct  attention  need  be  paid  to  the  special  grievance, 
save  to  see  that  the  child  is  treated  with  absolute  fairness ; 
even  disapproval  need  not  be  manifest;  but  the  child 
should  be  given  instant  and  attractive  'occupation  that 
shall  leave  no  time  for  self-indulgence.  We  must  also 
appeal  to  every  motive  for  self-mastery  and  persuade 
him  that  he  must  win  such  battles  if  he  ever  expects  to 
live  happily  with  others. 

As  to  Quarrelling:  We  have  to  acknowledge  that  quar- 
relling among  children,  though  disagreeable  to  by-standers, 
has  some  merit  as  a  stimulant  both  for  mind  and  body. 
It  represents  their  way  of  trying  to  get  what  they  want, 
and  sometimes  to  get  justice.  Where  two  children  do 
not  quarrel,  it  is  often  because  one,  the  stronger,  is  always 
getting  what  he  wants. 

We  can  ameliorate  children's  quarrelling  somewhat. 
If  they  have  had  enough  sleep  and  rest,  they  will  not 
feel  so  quarrelsome.  Sometimes  we  can  arbitrate. 
Occasionally  we  can  divert.  Merely  to  stop  a  quarrel, 
when  justice  is  not  arrived  at,  is  a  poor  way  to  deal  with 
the   problem.     It   sometimes   takes   more   grace   not   to 


106      -CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

interfere  in  these  youthful  experiments  with  principles. 
Ernest  Abbott  thinks  that  often  all  we  need  to  deal  with 
is  the  noise,  insisting,  "  If  you  can't  quarrel  quietly, 
you  shall  not  quarrel  at  all!" 

As  to  Fighting:  Where  quarrels  lead  to  blows  we  have 
a  more  complex  problem.  If  all  fights  chiefly  involved 
anger  we  would  deal  with  them  alike.  But  when  one 
contest  is  of  jealousy  and  another  is  a  mere  matching 
of  strengths  and  a  third  is  a  playground  initiation  and  a 
fourth  is  an  act  of  chivalry  and  still  another  is  a  joyous 
habit  we  are  often  dealing  with  contests  that  have  in 
them  little  of  the  element  of  anger  at  all.  Each  contest 
must  be  judged  on  its  own  merits.  It  is  evident  that  to 
prohibit  a  boy  from  fighting  is  not  to  prevent  him  from 
being  angry;  it  may,  on  the  other  hand,  encourage  him  to 
express  his  anger  in  undesirable  underhand  ways.  Neither 
must  a  boy  be  allowed  to  fight  indiscriminately;  he  can 
at  least  be  guided  to  act  thus  chiefly  in  defense  of  his  own 
person  or  honor  or  of  the  cause  of  the  weak  or  persecuted, 
and  only  as  a  vigorous  last  resort.  If  a  boy  is  encouraged 
to  talk  over  his  fights  at  home  it  ought  to  be  possible  to 
prevent  his  becoming  either  a  bully  or  a  quarrelsome 
nuisance. 

As  to  Teasing:  Teasing  is  an  idleness  disease,  and  its 
cure  is  occupation.  Being  teased  is  an  infirmity  of  being 
unguarded,  and  the  teased  child  needs  to  be  taught  how 
to  guard  himself  for  the  attack,  by  a  sense  of  humor, 
through  well-rehearsed  repartee  or  by  "  splendid  isola- 
tion "  as  the  need  may  be. 

In  General 

1.  The  emotions  of  a  child  depend  largely  upon  his 
physical  condition.  If  a  child  is  peevish,  sullen,  irritable, 
easily  frightened  or  embarrassed,  there  is  the  presumption 
that  he  is  not  feeling  well  bodily.  He  is  less  fearful,  less 
subject  to  embarrassment  or  ridicule,  less  likely  to  get 
angry  if  he  is  in  buoyant  health. 

2.  A  child's  emotions  are  intensely  subject  to  sugges- 
tion.    Much  fear,   embarrassment   and   wrath   are   con- 


DEALING  WITH  THE  EMOTIONS  107 

tagious  from  parents.  If  we  simulate  courage  we  shall 
lessen  the  child's  fear;  if  we  are  ready  to  comfort  and 
sympathize  he  will  more  easily  overcome  embarrassment ; 
if  we  are  calm  he  will  be  less  likely  to  have  fits  of  passion. 

3.  We  can  gradually  educate  the  child  to  conquer 
instant  and  total  abandonment  to  emotion,  crying, 
passion,  discouragement,  by  a  regimen  that  involves 
wholesome  hardship,  experiences  of  strenuous  endeavor, 
and  certain  soldierry  ideals. 

4.  The  highest  phases  of  emotion  are  unknown  to 
children.  Their  loves,  their  griefs,  their  loyalties  are 
transitory.  There  must  be  a  deeper  understanding  of 
worth  to  make  possible  the  deepest  affection.  The 
emotions  therefore  develop  with  intelligence. 

Reading  References 
Bolton:  "Principles  of  Education,"  XXV.  King:  "The  Psychology 
of  Child  Development,"  XIII,  XIV.  Hall:  "Adolescence,"  X.  Hall 
gives  a  wealth  of  facts,  from  the  genetic  standpoint,  as  to  the  development 
of  the  feelings  before  and  during  adolescence;  King  and  Bolton  cover  the 
earlier  periods.  Bolton  makes  many  practical  suggestions  as  to  training 
the  feelings. 


CHAPTER  XV 
INTEREST 

The  applicability  of  this  chapter  to  teachers  is  obvious, 
but  it  is  of  equal  importance  to  parents.  Parents  wish 
to  know  how  to  sustain  the  interest  of  children  in  study, 
worth-while  pursuits  and  work. 

Interest  is  a  feeling  of  the  worth  to  one's  self  of  an 
object  which  he  is  contemplating  or  of  an  end  which  he 
may  attain.  Behind  interest  is  an  impulsion  toward  the 
object  or  end.  The  mind,  for  instance,  rests  upon  a 
thousand  objects  in  a  short  space  of  time,  but  selects 
only  one  to  regard  with  favor.  There  are  every  hour 
many  possible  ends  toward  which  we  might  work;  we 
choose  one  as  worth  while.  "  My  experience,"  says 
Bolton,  "  is  what  I  agree  to  attend  to."  We  agree  to 
attend  usually  only  to  what  we  are  interested  in.  Our 
experience  is  bounded  by  our  interest. 

The  matter  of  the  origin  of  our  interests  is  a  fascinating 
topic  of  inquiry.  Some  of  them  are  no  doubt  a  part  of 
our  race-heritage.  De  Garmo  thinks  that  they  arise 
primarily  from  the  activities  put  forth  by  primitive  men 
to  secure  the  requisites  for  their  physical  survival.  Some 
of  them  evidently  come  from  our  more  immediate  an- 
cestors. But  the  origin  of  our  interests  in  our  surround- 
ings is  much  more  evident  than  their  origin  in  heredity. 
Our  "  original  satisfiers,"  as  Thorndike  calls  them,  are 
small  in  number  and  potency  compared  with  our  per- 
manent satisfiers.  Our  interests  unfold  as  our  surround- 
ings unfold.  Interest,  Irving  King  reminds  us,  is  a  func- 
tion of  the  developing,  as  well  as  of  the  primitive,  organ- 
ism. The  richer  the  child's  world  in  objects  and  ends, 
the  wider  become  his  interests. 

Interests  Classified 
Students    are    generally    agreed    in    dividing    human 
interests  into  two  classes,  though  strangely  enough  they 

108 


INTEREST  109 

are  not  agreed  upon  their  names.  One  authority  classes 
the  interests  as  native  and  artificial;  another  as  work- 
interests  and  play -interests ;  a  third  as  the  interests  that 
involve  self-expression  and  those  which  involve  conquest. 
These  seem  to  be  only  different  names  for  the  same  thing. 
Some  situations  appeal  to  the  mind  at  once;  it  recognizes 
their  worth;  it  reacts  to  them;  the  name  of  this  activity, 
in  which  the  act  is  its  own  reward,  is  play.  Other  situa- 
tions do  not  make  the  same  appeal;  the  mind  does  not 
recognize  their  inherent  worth,  but  it  may  be  moved  by 
imitation,  emulation,  the  encouragement  of  another  or 
the  recognition  of  some  future  reward;  it  reacts  to  them. 
The  name  of  this  activity,  in  which  the  reward  is  beyond 
the  act,  is  work.  In  the  former  case  there  was  the  joy  of 
self-expression ;  in  the  latter,  that  of  conquest. 

Interest  in  self-expression  appears  earliest.  The  young 
child  responds  to  objects  and  ends  within  the  sphere  of 
sensation,  to  concrete  opportunities,  to  what  people  do 
more  than  to  what  they  say.  Whatever  means  novelty 
to  him  means  interest.  And,  at  least  for  the  first  six 
years,  the  emphasis  of  his  interest  is  upon  the  act  rather 
than  upon  the  object.  Playful  activity  is  his  characteris- 
tic response  as  an  expression  of  interest.  After  this  the 
child  begins  to  find  disparities,  first  between  his  imagina- 
tion and  actuality,  and  later  between  his  powers  and  the 
possibilities  of  the  case.  But  now  he  is  impelled  by 
competition  with  others,  by  offered  rewards,  by  affection 
for  his  teacher,  by  the  mere  joy  of  endeavor  and  victory, 
to  care  for  that  which  has  lost  the  interest  of  novelty. 
Later,  the  life-interests  appear.  These  are,  like  the 
interests  of  his  early  childhood,  native  interests ;  they  have 
the  charm  of  play,  and  he  pursues  them  in  the  play-spirit. 
But  they  are  not  always  within  the  sphere  of  sensation, 
they  do  not  always  promise  immediate  pleasure;  the  ends 
may  be  far  away  and  out  of  sight.  In  their  pursuit  the 
joy  of  endeavor  and  conquest  still  sustains  him,  and  so 
the  work-spirit  and  the  play-spirit,  like  goodness  and 
mercy  in  the  Twenty-third  Psalm,  "  follow  him  all  the 
days  of  his  life." 


110       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

The  Importance  of  Interest 
We  already  see  the  importance  of  interest  in  a  life. 
"It  is,"  as  G.  Stanley  Hall  says,  "  like  bodily  hunger, 
an  expression  of  need. ' '  Interests  are  the  direct  outgrowth 
of  the  instincts.  Feelings  of  interest  relate  themselves 
on  the  one  side  to  the  intelligence  and  on  the  other  to  the 
will.  They  relate  to  the  will,  because  when  one  is  in- 
terested he  wants  to  do;  they  relate  to  the  intelligence, 
because  one  must  know  how  to  do.  So  the  interests 
spring  out  of  one's  inmost  nature  and  affect  all  he  knows 
and  does. 

Speaking  of  certain  general  differences  between  the 
sexes,  Thorndike  says:  "  Recognition  of  the  original 
strength,  in  boys,  of  the  interest  in  things  and  their 
mechanisms,  and  of  the  original  strength,  in  girls,  of  the 
interest  in  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  persons,  will 
increase  the  effectiveness  of  school  management.  The 
first  necessity  in  education  everywhere  is  to  know  what 
man  will  be  and  do  apart  from  education."  The  "  original 
strength  of  interest  "  is  what  has  made  many  a  man  well- 
educated  apart  from  school,  and  this  strength,  utilized, 
will  characterize  the  most  successful  teaching  in  the  school- 
room and  the  most  successful  nurture  in  the  home.  "  If 
properly  appealed  to,  curiosity  alone,"  says  Kirkpatrick, 
"is  a  sufficient  motive  for  the  invasion  of  every  fresh 
field  of  knowledge." 

Why  Interest  Ever  Fails 
Why,  if  this  is  so,  is  interest  ever  neglected?  Because 
interest  is  often  identified  with  amusement.  The  teacher 
may  excite  interest  in  two  ways, —  she  may  give  new  ex- 
periences to  the  pupil  by  showing  or  describing  to  him 
something  that  he  has  never  seen  before,  or  she  may  direct 
his  attention  to  unobserved  qualities  or  relations  in 
familiar  objects.  The  former  is  the  easier  and  more 
amusing  way.  As  long  as  her  stock  of  curios,  her  lantern 
slides,  her  stories,  hold  out,  she  can  maintain  interest. 
The  student  is  passive,  pleased,  amused.  But  the  result, 
as  Kirkpatrick  tells  us,    "  is  that  all  the   sweetness  is 


INTEREST  111 

taken  out  of  a  subject  before  anything  of  value  is 
learned  about  it,  and  subsequent  teachers  find  it  almost 
impossible  to  interest  the  children  in  these  unpalatable 
and  half-chewed  materials.  Not  only  has  the  delightful 
flavor  of  newness  been  removed  from  the  subject,  but  the 
mental  habit  of  taking  rich  food  instead  of  working  for 
daily  bread  has  been  cultivated."  Then  he  states  the 
secret  of  perpetual  interest.  "  The  real  test  of  interest 
is  not  how  much  pleasure  do  the  children  get  out  of  the 
study,  but  how  much  effort  do  they  put  forth  in  pursuing  it." 

Now  the  measure  of  a  teacher's  success  in  teaching  a 
subject  is  not  whether  all  the  pupils  "  pass  "  in  it.  Too 
often  the  subject  passes,  as  well  as  the  pupil.  A  better 
measure  of  success  is :  Will  the  student  choose  this  subject 
later  on?  And  yet  this  is  not  always  possible.  There 
are  some  subjects  full  of  drudgeiy  and  detail  work,  in 
which  the  interest  will  not  attach  to  the  thing  or  to  the 
details  by  which  it  is  mastered.  We  see  here  three  levels 
of  interest.  The  teacher  who  regards  interest  of  any 
sort  whatever  as  a  necessary  means  uses  the  amusement 
method.  The  teacher  who  regards  interest  in  the  subject 
as  a  necessity  is  unsatisfied  unless  when  he  gets  to  the  end 
of  the  textbook  he  is  certain  that  his  pupil  will  continue 
its  study.  But  there  is  also  the  teacher  who  does  not 
scorn  pleasurable  interest  from  the  pupil  when  it  comes 
his  way,  and  who  hopes  that  he  is  leaving  a  deposit  of 
permanent  interest  in  the  subject,  but  who  is  sometimes 
content  if  he  can  merely  keep  up  interest  in  the  effort 
itself.  The  last  two  are  not  mutually  exclusive.  We  do 
not  wish  to  have  the  child  do  a  thing  unwillingly,  and  it 
is  not  often  necessary  that  he  should  do  so.  But  when  he 
does  and  does  it  to  a  finish,  there  is  a  rare  satisfaction, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  university  student  who  once  said  to 
Bolton:  "  I  would  like  to  take  a  certain  attractive  course, 
but  I  have  started  this  German;  I  have  had  no  end  of 
difficulty  with  it,  but  I  felt  that  to  give  it  up  would  be 
like  yielding  to  temptation.  To  fight  it  out  will  be  to 
strengthen  my  moral  nature." 

What  has  just  been  said  is  of  immense  importance  to 


112       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

the  parent.  The  first  tendency  of  the  happy  mother  is 
to  shower  her  child  with  playthings.  She  is  disappointed 
to  find  that  some  of  these  gifts  lose  their  interest,  and  she 
cannot  think  of  anything  to  do  but  to  buy  more.  But 
even  if  she  could  purchase  a  new  toy  each  day,  or  if  the 
resources  of  the  toy  world  presented  a  new  toy  for  each 
day  of  the  year,  she  would  find  that  interest  aroused  in 
this  way  is  never  lasting.  Then,  too,  when  the  child  is 
old  enough  to  work  as  well  as  play,  to  be  helpful  as  well 
as  to  be  amused,  she  sees  that  she  has  been  creating  selfish 
as  well  as  shallow  interests.  She  longs  for  some  sense  of 
obligation,  of  persistence,  of  desire  to  share  and  to  serve, 
and  she  knows  that  her  method  has  produced  none  of  these. 
She  too  discovers  that  the  value  of  a  plaything  is  not 
the  pleasure  it  gives,  but  the  effort  it  demands.  She  too 
sees  that  the  amusement-interest  is  not  dynamic  enough 
to  develop  the  passion  for  struggle.  She  also,  when  she 
has  come  to  the  end  of  her  play-inducements,  wishes  she 
knew  how  to  keep  up  satisfaction  in  mere  effort. 

Suggestions  for  Maintaining  Interest  . 

A  few  suggestions  may  be  made  as  to  awaking  and 
maintaining  interest. 

First,  it  is  evident  that  more  than  half  the  .battle  is  won 
if  the  teacher  gets  a  good  start  with  his  pupils  in  a  new 
subject.  Starbuck  tells  of  a  schoolmistress  who,  recogniz- 
ing that  geometries  are  —  somewhat  appropriately  — 
usually  bound  in  black,  spent  the  first  day  in  a  class  in 
plane  geometry  entirely  in  stories  of  great  mathematicians. 
The  second  day,  still  without  the  textbooks,  she  gave  up 
to  fascinating  solutions  which  these  mathematicians  had 
found  to  baffling  problems  of  measurement,  that  she 
sketched  out  on  the  blackboard.  At  length,  in  response 
to  an  eager  inquiry  from  some  pupil  "  if  there  wasn't 
some  book  that  would  tell  us  more  about  all  this,"  with 
apparent  reluctance  she  produced  the  textbooks,  upon 
which  her  whole  class  fell  with  avidity.  Some  days 
later,  when  an  unusually  neat  demonstration  of  an  original 
problem  had  been  made,  the  class  broke  out  in  spontaneous 


INTEREST  •  113 

applause  —  the  first  time  perhaps  when  there  had  ever 
been  applause  in  a  geometry  recitation.  That  was  good 
teaching.  There  was  an  example  of  a  successful  appeal 
to  interest. 

But  this  is  not  enough.  The  attitude  of  the  class  must 
not  ever  be:  "If  you  entertain  me,  I'll  keep  awake.  If 
not,  I'll  go  to  sleep  or  choose  some  other  study."  These 
are  the  people  who  never  do  anything  they  don't  like  to, 
and  when  they  have  reached  middle  life  are  still  looking 
for  something  they  will  like.  The  next  step  is  to  show 
the  relation  between  something  that  the  pupils  do  like 
and  this  new  thing  which  they  do  not  know  whether  they 
like  or  not.  W.  A.  Baldwin  on  Cape  Cod  found  that 
pupils  who  had  no  interest  in  arithmetic  discovered  such 
an  interest  when  they  took  their  problems  out  of  their 
gardens  instead  of  out  of  their  textbooks.  Wirt  at 
Gary  has  largely  solved  the  problem  of  interest  by  con- 
necting all  the  repairs  and  some  of  the  construction  about 
the  school  buildings  with  the  pupils  by  making  them 
practically  apprentices  to  the  workmen.  In  doing  this 
teachers  have  learned  a  good  deal  themselves.  They 
have  found  that  these  connections  of  interests  lead  to 
teaching  certain  subjects  in  new  ways.  History,  for 
example,  used  to  be  taught  in  chronological  order  only. 
That  was  the  way  adults  approached  it;  it  was  thought 
to  be  a  good  way  for  approach  by  children.  But  it  was 
discovered  that  the  interest  of  the  child  began  with 
his  own  immediate  family,  not  with  the  prehistoric  family ; 
with  current  social  usages,  not  with  ancient  ones.  So, 
as  Thorndike  says,  "  perhaps  the  story  of  the  voyages  of 
the  parents  of  some  pupil  in  the  class  should  precede 
that  of  the  voyage  of  Columbus.  Perhaps  to  work  back 
from  the  Philippines  to  Alaska,  to  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
to  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  would  be  more  instructive 
than  to  begin  with  the  Spanish,  English,  French  and  Dutch 
settlements." 

And  when  we  come  to  subjects  that  must  involve 
drudgery,  we  need  not  neglect  to  look  for  and  employ 
interest.     We   agree   with   McMurry   that   the   way   to 


114       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

prepare  for  drudgery  is  to  develop  a  strong  motive. 
Motive  has  its  origin  in  interest.  "  Hence,  the  chief 
preparation  for  drudgery  that  a  teacher  can  give  is  a 
strong  and  many-sided  interest."  Children  feel,  for 
instance,  an  exhilaration  which  adults  do  not  know  in 
merely  going  through  processes.  They  like  to  do  ex- 
amples, to  memorize  words,  to  do  a  task  through.  This, 
with  their  docility  and  the  authority  of  the  teacher, 
carries  a  young  child  through  many  routine  occupations. 
Later,  when  the  processes  are  not  interesting,  the  results 
may  be  made  so.  Instead  of  "  exercises,"  children  may 
write  real  letters;  instead  of  learning  the  Constitution 
they  may  face  real  concrete  civic  problems;  instead  of 
laboring  over  adult  textbooks  they  may  write,  illustrate 
and  bind  small,  childlike  readers  and  geographies  of  their 
own.  Bolton  says  that  once,  when  he  was  having  diffi- 
culty in  maintaining  the  interest  of  his  pupils  in  penman- 
ship, he  told  them  that  it  would  be  a  required  exercise 
only  until  each  one  could  write  a  plain,  legible  hand  with 
fair  rapidity.  The  results  were  amazing.  '  They  now 
had  a  desirable  aim  which  excited  their  deepest  interest." 
They  asked  for  information  and  help  instead  of  shirking 
it;  they  coached  themselves  and  each  other.  In  other 
subjects  it  was  found  that  the  prospect  of  a  goal  instead 
of  an  indefinite  continuance  brought  the  happiest  results. 
And  when  there  is  no  possible  interest  except  fidelity, 
victory  or  responsibility,  the  child  who  has  had  the  joy 
of  conquest  is  the  one  who  will  best  respond  to  the  thought : 
This  must  be  done;   this  falls  to  me,  and  /  must  do  it. 

Application  in  the  Home 
We  can  carry  these  thoughts  right  into  our  homes. 
Take  the  special  problem  of  work,  which  we  shall  discuss 
more  fully  in  a  later  chapter.  First,  let  us  get  a  good 
beginning.  Show  the  value  of  the  task.  It  will  beautify 
the  home,  or  it  will  add  to  the  comfort  of  all,  or  it  will 
make  more  leisure  later  for  play.  This  task  was  one 
that  was  wrought  successfully  by  a  favorite  hero,  or  it 
had   an   important   part   in   making   some   great   man's 


INTEREST  115 

character.  Second,  show  how  it  relates  to  something 
that  is  already  known  or  liked.  "  It  gives  you  a  chance 
to  practice  the  skill  learned  in  the  shop  or  sewing  class 
at  school.  This  is  a  task  of  importance  for  one  who  is 
going  to  become  a  trained  nurse  or  a  foreman  of  a  shop, 
as  you  are."  Third,  develop  a  strong  motive.  "  I 
want  to  see  if  you  can  do  this  piece  of  work  to  a  finish; 
can  you  master  it,  or  will  you  let  it  master  you?  Let  us 
do  it  together,  and  see  who  will  get  his  share  done  first. 
Let  us  make  a  time  limit,  and  try  to  finish  it  all  before 
five  o'clock." 

Reading  References 
De  Garmo:  "  Interest  and  Education,"  particularly  VIII.  Bolton: 
"  Principles  of  Education,"  666-704.  James:  "  Talks  to  Teachers,"  91- 
99.  Kirkpatrick:  "The  Individual  in  the  Making,"  11-51.  King: 
"  The  Psychology  of  Child  Development,"  154-221.  King  discusses 
thoroughly  the  origin  and  development  of  the  interests.  Kirkpatrick 
does  so  briefly.  The  first  three  references  bear  upon  the  use  of  interest 
in  the  schoolroom,  but  are  also  suggestive  for  the  home. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
WILL  TRAINING 

The  will  used  to  be  thought  of  as  a  separate  faculty 
of  a  man,  that  must  give  its  fiat,  like  the  president's 
signature  to  a  bill,  before  any  act  became  possible.  But 
it  was  long  ago  noticed  that  so  simple  an  act  as  winking 
did  not  fall  within  this  definition.  We  now  use  the  term 
"will"  only  in  connection  with  action  that  is  prompted 
by  clearly  thought-out  motives. 

Several  facts  are  implied  by  this  way  of  looking  at 
the  matter.  In  the  first  place,  if  we  are  going  to  think 
out  our  motives,  evidently  we  must  possess  a  certain 
stock  of  motives,  among  which  to  choose.  These  past 
motives  that  we  have  used  before  under  similar  circum- 
stances are  our  memories.  But  they  are  more  than 
things  recalled ;  they  are  things  recalled  with  favor.  They 
are  memories  of  past  desires  that  became  habits.  We 
recall  our  desires  more  easily  than  our  repulsions. 

So  this  is  the  way  we  will:  Out  of  our  stock  of  past 
choices  the  mind  finds  alternatives  for  present  choice; 
it  chooses  among  these  and  as  soon  as  it  chooses,  acts 
accordingly.  Those  choices  that  have  been  most  often 
favored  appear  most  attractively,  to  be  chosen  again. 
Yet  they  are  not  inevitably  chosen.  The  man  can  still 
deliberate,  he  can  assort  them  according  to  their  value. 
If  he  will  do  this,  if  he  will  think  long  enough  and  im- 
partially enough  to  discover  the  right  name  for  each,  he 
will  choose  the  best  and  will  act  for  the  best. 

William  James  illustrated  this  fact  by  the  man  who  has 
been  a  drunkard.  He  goes  by  a  saloon,  and  as  he  passes 
memories  rush  to  his  attention,  predominantly  the  memo- 
ries of  past  desire.  But  he  is  not  necessarily  doomed. 
He  finds  himself  naming  and  classifying  these  impulses. 
If  he  thinks  of  this  as  an  opportunity  to  test  a  new  brand 

116 


WILL  TRAINING  117 

of  whiskey,  or  to  be  sociable  with  his  friends,  or  to  stimu- 
late his  good  resolves  by  a  parting  glass,  he  is  lost,  but 
if  he  sees  clearly  that  a  drink  involves  being  a  drunkard, 
then  he  is  on  the  road  to  salvation.  Every  accumulated 
memory  of  a  victory  moves  his  feet  nearer  to  permanent 
safety. 

*  Let  us  for  clearness  of  thought  set  down  the  three  most 
important  words  in  the  study  of  will :  Habits,  Deliberation, 
Action. 

The  Relation  of  Habits  to  Will 
We  spoke  above  of  the  way  evil  habits  bind  the  will, 
so  that  it  is  difficult  to  get  free  after  many  foolish  choices 
have  been  made.  On  the  contrary,  how  hopeful  is  the 
situation  in  the  life  of  the  child  who,  before  the  time  of 
strong  determining  has  come,  has  been  moulded  into  so 
many  right  and  pleasant  habits  that  they  form  a  goodly 
company  of  memories,  that  are  motives,  from  which 
he  may  choose. 

Our  task  with  children  is  to  multiply  their  presupposi- 
tions, those  experiences  of  doing  things  in  the  right  way 
which  will  ever  after  clamor  in  the  field  of  attention  as 
regular  choices.  We  know  what  some  of  these  are:  the 
control  of  the  ordinary  muscular  movements,  to  stand, 
walk  and  govern  the  body  gracefully,  to  manage  and 
modulate  the  voice,  to  marshal  one's  thoughts  readily. 
All  those  imply  a  life  of  great  physical  freedom  in  early 
youth,  accompanied  by  thorough  muscular  training. 

Evidently  habit  must  go  even  further.  It  must  involve 
the  control  of  the  feelings.  The  young  child  is  abandoned 
to  his  feelings,  of  every  sort.  They  are  a  mob  who  con- 
quer him  at  every  turn.  If,  as  we  have  said,  the  will  is 
a  choice  among  past  desires,  then  out  of  that  mob  rulers 
should  have  been  appointed  and  others  to  serve.  Anger, 
jealousy,  curiosity  in  childhood  are  impulsive,  irrational 
and  quite  unrestrained.  But  they  cannot  always  remain 
so.  To  will  implies  not  only  the  alliance  with  noble 
desires,  but  the  inhibiting  of  ignoble  ones.  And  the 
best  result  has  come  when  the  alliance  overshadows  the 


118       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD   TRAINING 

inhibition.  We  may,  James  tells  us,  repress  or  substitute. 
In  teaching  school  you  may  draw  the  attention  of  your 
pupils  from  an  attractive  occurrence  outside  by  bellowing 
at  them,  and  they  will  attend;  this  is  inhibition.  Or  you 
can  put  upon  the  blackboard  such  an  attractive  sketch 
that  they  will  forget  what  is  outside;  that  is  substitution. 
Since  out  of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life,  thus  to  depend' 
upon  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection  is  a  very  fine 
art  in  child  training. 

There  is  the  greatest  room  for  the  training  of  the  senti- 
ments. We  must  not  merely  habituate  our  children  to 
right  doing,  but  the  doing  of  right  must  at  all  times  be 
associated  so  far  as  possible  with  pleasure,  with  love,  with 
joyous  service  if  we  are,  as  Bushnell  so  beautifully  said, 
"  surely  to  implant  the  angel  in  the  man." 

The  Relation  of  Deliberation  to  Will 
We  have  implied  that  to  deliberate  among  possible 
choices  is  to  classify  them.  Classifying  gives  an  oppor- 
tunity for  a  measurement  of  values.  We  see,  therefore, 
the  need  of  developing  moral  thoughtfulness.  The  moral 
judgment  that  results  from  moral  thoughtfulness  and 
trained  feelings  we  call  Conscience.  We  used  to  think 
it  a  separate  faculty.  We  called  it  "  the  voice  of  God  in 
the  soul  of  man."  If  we  conceived  the  will  as  a  monarch 
on  his  throne,  then  conscience  was  the  good  angel  who 
bent  over  his  shoulder  and  whispered  counsel  in  his  ear. 
But  even  the  theologian  acknowledges  that  while  con- 
science at  its  best  is  the  Inner  Light,  yet  practically  a 
man's  conscience  at  any  given  time  is  simply  the^expression 
of  the  best  that  is  known  to  him.  And  while  such  knowl- 
edge is  partly  his  own  responsibility,  it  is  evidently  partly 
the  responsibility  of  those  who  were  his  teachers.  He 
was  not  born  in  possession  of  the  Ten  Commandments. 
Real  moral  thoughtfulness  implies  that  we  give  the 
child  time  and  room  to  do  his  thinking.  We  must  not 
be  sudden,  nor  jerky,  nor  hieratical.  Wherever  possible 
we  should  offer  him  an  alternative,  so  that  he  may 
become    familiar    with    the    possibility    of    choice.     We 


WILL  TRAINING  119 

should  urge  him  to  go  apart  when  he  is  agitated  or  about 
to  collide  with  us  or  another,  and  command  his  feelings 
and  seek  the  better  reason.  When  he  is  not  likely  to  do 
himself  or  anybody  else  much  damage,  he  should  be 
allowed  the  precious  experience  of  learning  from  his 
mistakes.  Unless  he  may  he  never  really  has  free  will. 
It  takes  time  to  grow  a  conscience. 

The  Will  in  Action 
We  can  now  see  a  little  more  clearly  in  what  a  strong 
will  consists.  A  noisy  lad  with  uncontrolled  impulses 
does  not  possess  a  strong  will.  A  child  who  resists  com- 
mands to  the  degree  that  he  does  not  respond  when 
punished  is  not  necessarily  strong  in  will ;  since  all  he  does 
is  to  resist,  his  will  is  purely  negative  and  fruitless.  It 
is  evidently  a  mistake  to  restrict  our  idea  of  will  power  to 
the  man  who  can  resist  great  temptation;  the  man  who, 
because  of  hereditary  tendencies. to  temperance  and  early 
training  in  abstinence,  can  pass  a  saloon  without  any  desire 
to  go  inside,  is  a  better  example  of  a  well-trained  will, 
which  disposed  of  that  enemy  before  it  raised  its  head. 
Let  us  laud  struggle,  and  praise  the  man  who  masters 
himself  in  the  face  of  temptation,  but  let  us  covet  rather 
to  discipline  children  who,  as  Whitman  said,  "  lift  that 
level  and  pass  beyond." 

Defective  Wills 

Two  special  abnormal  types  appear  frequently  among 
children. 

One  is  the  child  of  explosive  will.  He  acts  on  instinct 
or  instant  impulse  and  gives  little  or  no  time  to  delibera- 
tion. Inhibition  is  practically  unknown  to  such  a  child. 
He  answers  vigorously  to  the  first  call  that  seizes  his 
attention,  and  since  he  seldom  foresees  it  is  hard  to 
prophesy  what  he  will  do  next.  Evidently  such  a  child 
must  frequently  be  checked  when  he  is  about  to  embark 
upon  a  new  activity,  and  given  a  chance  to  analyze  and 
perhaps  explain  aloud  its  reasonableness  or  unreasonable- 
ness.    He  must  be  shown  both  that  he  loses  much  that 


120       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

is  worth  while  because  he  does  not  give  it  time  to  gain  his 
attention  and  that  he  can  gain  much  more  that  is  good  out 
of  that  which  he  chooses  if  he  will  take  time  to  go  about 
it  in  the  best  way.  It  may  be  necessary  sometimes  to 
penalize  such  a  child  by  obliging  him  to  carry  each 
separate  choice  to  completion  before  springing  to  another, 
and  to  satisfy  him  of  the  benefit  of  deliberation  and 
perseverance  by  giving  him  the  privilege  of  earning  the 
greater  reward  which  comes  from  such  perseverance. 
The  treatment  required  may  be  summed  up  in  this  word 
of  caution:  "  My  son,  you  must  take  plenty  of  time  to 
decide,  and  you  must  stick  to  your  decisions  when  made." 
This  of  course  does  not  apply  to  decisions  to  do  wrong. 
The  peril  of  such  a  will  is  that  it  is  easily  influenced  in 
wrong  directions.  Our  work  here  is,  as  G.  H.  Dix  says, 
"  to  train  the  possessor  of  an  explosive  will  to  prudence." 
The  other  type  is  the  obstructed  will.  Its  "  function  is 
smothered  in  surmise,"  as  Shakespeare  said.  Of  this 
type  the  most  trying  is  the  obstinate  child.  Such  a 
child  is  not  so  active  as  he  is  "  set."  The  idea  of  opposi- 
tion enters  his  mind  and  he  insists  on  carrying  it  to  the 
end.  This  kind  of  child  is  best  treated  not  by  counter- 
opposition.  What  he  usually  needs  is  not  to  be  conquered 
but  to  be  helped.  Often  he  would  like  to  be  willing.  But 
he  thinks  he  has  been  injured;  he  believes  he  has  been 
slighted ;  or  he  simply  feels  out  of  sorts.  His  gloom  should 
be  met  with  inconquerable  cheeriness,  and  with  pleasant 
humor.  The  sulkiness  can  usually  be  ignored.  A  word 
of  approval  may  put  him  on  good  terms  with  himself  as 
well  as  with  ourself .  Sometimes  a  new  line  of  thought  or 
course  of  action  will  carry  him  along  with  you.  The 
suggestion  of  helpfulness  to  yourself  may  at  once  remove 
his  suspiciousness  and  enable  him  to  express  the  friend- 
liness which  he  feels  at  heart.  A  good  deal  of  love  will 
conquer  a  good  deal  of  stubbornness. 

How  a  Child  Achieves  Freedom 
The  child  seems  to  pass  through  three  stages  in  his  will 
development. 


WILL  TRAINING  121 

First,  is  the  stage  of  command.  The  mother,  in  her  proc- 
ess of  training  the  child  in  good  and  safe  habits,  must 
give  many  explicit  directions.  She  shows  him  how  and 
patiently  helps  him  to  form  ideas  of  useful  actions  and 
to  carry  them  out.  But  she  must  also,  for  his  protection, 
restrain  him  from  many  harmful  practices  and  she  must 
do  this  by  negative  commands.  In  many  ways,  then,  this 
is  the  repressive  stage  of  will. 

Second,  is  the  stage  of  co-operation.  Just  as  soon  as 
possible  (much  sooner  than  many  parents  realize)  comes 
the  time  when  the  child  can  work  under  direction  and 
control,  in  co-operation  with  his  mother.  There  are  now 
fewer  commands,  and  more  frequent  invitations  and 
suggestions.  "  Let  us  do  "  is  an  admirable  phrase  to 
use  very  often.  During  this  time  more  freedom  may  be 
allowed  the  child,  and  the  parent  is  more  anxious  to  find 
the  right  spirit  than  to  expect  perfection  of  execution. 

Then  we  come  to  the  stage  of  self -discipline.  Control 
now  passes  from  without  within.  The  youth  says,  as 
Jesus  said  in  the  temple,  "  I  must."  Commands  and 
invitations  are  now  superseded  by  inner  promptings. 
"It  is  the  highest  stage  of  voluntary  action,  because  in 
it  is  expressed  the  whole  personality,  self -directed,  self- 
controlled  ,  self -disciplined . ' ' 

The  Child's  Will  and  the  Parent's  Will 
It  requires  great  wisdom  to  recognize  and  help  the  child 
through  these  stages.  We  are  so  sure  of  our  own  adult 
wisdom  and  so  fearful  of  the  mistakes  that  the  child  may 
make  in  his  ignorance  and  his  wilfulness,  that  we  forget 
that  our  wills  are  only  sponsors  and  proxies  for  his,  until 
his  is  established  in  power.  Or,  we  may  make  the  con- 
trary mistake,  and  spoil  a  child  by  letting  him  free  before 
he  is  wise  or  worthy  to  be  free,  and  so  let  him  become  a 
man  of  mere  impulse  and  wilfulness.  Each  stage  must  be 
experienced  and  passed  through.  The  right  attitude  for 
the  parent  is  to  work  as  a  patient  craftsman  with  the  child 
through  each  period,  while  at  the  same  time  anticipating 
the  next  with  prophetic  and  providing  mind. 


122       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Summary 
Will  training  embodies  these  factors : 

1.  Furnishing  the  child  with  an  abundance  of  good 
ideas. 

2.  Building  these  into  a  stock  of  good  habits. 

3.  Training  him  to  select  thoughtfully  from  his  past 
ideas  and  habits  in  making  his  present  choices. 

4.  Associating  his  right  choices  so  far  as  is  possible 
with  pleasant  consequences,  by  connecting  them  with  his 
interests,  so  that  they  may  become  the  favored  choices 
whenever  he  makes  a  new  decision. 

5.  Insisting  that  the  precipitate  child  shall  take  time 
to  deliberate  and  shall  not  vacillate  after  he  has  chosen. 

6.  Helping  the  obstinate  child  through  affectionate 
cheerfulness,  sidetracking  some  of  his  difficulties  by  diver- 
sion and  aiding  him  to  conquer  others  by  co-operation. 

7.  Working  first  through  command,  then  through 
suggestion  and  finally  through  encouragement,  as  the 
child  in  turn  responds  to  these  incentives. 

8.  Giving  the  youth  room  to  make  choices  and  to  live 
his  own  life. 

Reading  References 
Simple  statements  about  will-training  are  rare.  Chapter  IX  of  Dix's 
"  Child  Study  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Teaching  of  Religion  "  is 
such  a  statement.  There  is  a  very  good  one  in  Chapter  IX  of  Holmes' 
"  Principles  of  Character  Making."  The  psychology  of  the  will  is  treated 
at  length  in  Chapter  XXVI  of  James'  "  Psychology  "  and  much  more 
briefly  in  his  "  Talks  to  Teachers."  Mumford's  "  The  Dawn  of  Charac- 
ter "  has  two  helpful  chapters,  the  seventh  on  the  development  of  the  will, 
and  the  eighth  on  will-training. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
PLAY 

The  old  idea  was  that  when  a  child  was  playing  he  was 
"  fooling."  To  outgrow  play  was  regarded  as  the  sign 
of  commendable  approach  to  good  sense  and  maturity. 
Today  we  believe  that  play  is  the  one  most  valuable 
activity  in  which  a  child  can  engage,  and  that  to  lose  out 
of  one's  life  the  spirit  of  play  is  a  sign  of  physical,  mental 
and  perhaps  moral  decline. 

The  reason  we  have  so  thoroughly  changed  our  minds 
is  because  we  see  that  play  is  one  of  our  very  valuable 
modes  of  self-expression.  It  is  true  that  it  is  self-ex- 
pression for  the  sake  of  expression  rather  than  for  any 
utilitarian  end,  but  for  a  child  at  least,  utility  is  not  so 
important  as  self -education  through  expression,  and  many 
of  the  "  ends  "  of  adults  would  be  much  more  successfully 
attained  if  the  worker  felt  that  in  his  work  he  could  express 
himself.  Indeed  the  best  work  in  the  world  is  being  done 
by  men  of  playful  joy  who,  like  Wordsworth's  Happy 
Warrior,  are  "  happy  as  a  lover,  and  attired  with  sudden 
brightness,  like  a  man  inspired,"  or  who,  like  Thomas  A. 
Edison,  never  carry  a  watch,  because  they  never  wish  to 
know  what  time  it  is.  "  Whatever  may  be  the  cause  of 
genius,"  says  Dr.  Paul  Carus,  "  it  certainly  shows  itself 
in  the  playful  ease  with  which  work  of  great  importance 
is  performed." 

Play,  then,  both  prepares  for  life  and  enhances  life. 
The  latter  is  the  conscious,  the  former  the  unconscious 
side  of  play.     Let  us  see  here  how  play  prepares  for  life. 

The  Value  of  Play 
Play  has  great  value  physically.     Dr.  John  P.  Garber 
says  that  the  characteristic  play  of  each  period  of  child- 
hood is  the  result  of  some  physical  stimulus  peculiar  to 
that  period. 

123 


124       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

"  In  infancy  the  head  and  arm  muscles,  being  strongest, 
control  the  type  of  play.  Sensations  that  come  through 
the  glitter  of  objects,  or  through  movement  or  noise, 
stimulate  it  to  activity.  So  the  rattle  and  the  ball,  or 
any  other  object  that  rolls,  and  bright  objects  and  things 
with  which  it  can  make  a  noise,  are  its  delight.  As  the 
brain  more  nearly  reaches  its  full  size  and  bones  and 
muscles  and  lungs  are  taking  their  turn  at  rapid  growth, 
the  period  of  running,  jumping  and  hunting  games  appears. 
These  are  followed  by  contest  games,  which  develop  the 
social  instinct  of  playing  in  co-operative  games.  This 
is  the  period  when  the  organs  of  the  body  are  maturing, 
when  the  fibres  which  connect  the  various  centers  of  the 
brain  and  which  play  such  an  important  part  in  the  as- 
sociation of  ideas  are  developing  most  rapidly.  As  the 
body  stops  growing  and  the  intellectual  and  business 
occupations  begin  to  absorb  the  time,  the  recreations 
tend  to  take  on  form  involving  emotional  life.  Hence 
it  would  seem  safe  to  say  that  the  impulse  to  exercise  or 
use  the  growing  parts  of  the  body  furnishes  the  only 
explanation  needed  to  account  for  the  play  activity,  and 
that  the  type  of  play  is  controlled  in  a  large  measure  by 
the  stage  of  the  bodily  development." 

Play  helps  develop  the  physical  strength.  As  Dr. 
Henry  S.  Curtis  reminds  us,  the  work  of  the  modern  city 
child  has  practically  disappeared,  amounting  to  hardly 
more  than  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  a  day.  Practically  the 
only  method  of  physical  training  left  is  play.  Still  more 
important,  play  helps  develop  the  vital  or  organic  strength. 
Organic  strength  is  far  more  essential  to  modern  life  than 
muscular  strength.  It  develops  what  we  call  "  a  good 
constitution."  Nearly  all  the  games  are  old  and  simple 
co-ordinations  of  movement  and  of  the  fundamental 
muscles.  Nearly  all  of  them  involve  running,  and  so 
tend  to  strengthen  the  legs  and  arms  and  heart. 

Play  is  of  value  in  mental  development.  Almost  every 
instinct  of  childhood  expresses  itself  by  means  of  play. 
These  instincts  work  out  through  the  senses  and  so  the 
young  child's  play  trains  his  sense  perceptions  as  does  no 


PLAY  125 

other  method.  When  the  sense  perceptions  are  busy 
they  pick  up  new  associations  and  responses,  and  so  play, 
which  awakens  them,  develops  more  differentiated  power 
in  using  them.  "  If  you  watch  a  young  child  play," 
says  Dr.  J.  M.  Tyler,  "  you  are  amused  by  the  number, 
variety  and  vigor  of  movements.  Many  of  these  give 
good  exercise,  but  are  a  complete  waste  of  energy,  so  far 
as  the  result  of  the  game  is  concerned.  Gradually,  as 
he  plays  more,  he  learns  to  suppress  these,  to  economize 
and  to  concentrate  energy.  This  is  one  of  the  earliest 
and  best  lessons  in  self-control.  It  is  a  slow  growth. 
But  the  poise  and  repose  of  the  trained  athlete  are  as 
admirable  as  his  strength.  All  his  life  long  he  saves  the 
energy  which  others  waste  in  fidgeting  and  fretting.  He  is 
a  shrewd  investor,  not  a  spendthrift,  of  his  great  power." 

Of  course  the  power  of  consecutive  attention  is  exer- 
cised through  play.  The  teacher  envies  the  intentness 
and  consecutiveness  of  attention  which  the  child  exhibits 
on  the  playground,  and  wishes  he  could  awaken  its  parallel 
in  the  schoolroom.  Surely  the  higher  mental  powers 
must  be  developed  in  such  alertness  and  such  vigorous 
uses  of  the  senses  and  the  muscles.  One  essential  of 
nearly  every  game  is  the  overcoming  of  obstacles.  The 
child's  fancy  finds  expression,  his  ingenuity  is  exercised, 
his  judgment  rapidly  sizes  up  a  situation  and  his  will 
promptly  acts  upon  it.  And  so  thinking,  feeling  and  doing 
are  all  united  in  conquering  difficulties.  In  play  he  forgets 
himself  and  so  the  barriers  of  shyness  and  self -conscious- 
ness, which  are  in  his  way  in  other  activities,  are  down. 
Thus  the  expressive  life  becomes  sensitive,  balanced, 
assured  and  serviceable. 

We  may  agree  with  Seashore  that  "  play  is  the  principal 
instrument  of  mental  growth." 

Play  is  of  social  value.  Child  play  reproduces  in  turn 
many  of  the  struggles,  experiences  and  achievements 
which  men  have  met  in  their  social  development.  The 
child,  like  the  race,  has  his  individual,  his  tribal,  his 
loyal  and  his  republican  stages  in  his  play-life.  These 
engagements  gradually  lead  from  competition  with  his 


126       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

mates  to  self-sacrifice  and  the  habit  of  sharing,  and 
gradually  blend  into  the  responsibilities  and  opportunities 
of  adult  life.  For  a  time  at  least  sturdy  physical  exercise 
in  play  mitigates  the  sexual  stress.  Stechert  thinks  that 
the  child  even  learns  civic  and  patriotic  virtues,  and  so 
develops  the  love  of  liberty,  in  the  mimic  world  of  play. 

Play  has  great  moral  value.  Free  play  is  the  source 
of  much  joy, the  joy  of  absolutely  untrammelled  expression, 
and  joy,  as  we  have  said,  is  strength.  Games  limit  self- 
expression  by  rules,  but  these  rules  develop  right  habits 
and  necessitate  the  practice  of  fairness.  Later,  if  play 
be  really  "  recreation  "  and  not  mere  "  diversion  "  or 
"  amusement,"  it  means  the  recreation  of  our  best  powers 
and  not  a  tired  pulling  off  from  duty. 

Play  directly  transforms  energies  that  easily  become 
vagrant  into  wholesome  channels.  Johnson  reminds  us 
that  the  very  instinct  for  being  chased  which  may  lead  a 
boy  into  the  juvenile  court  might,  under  direction, 
enable  him  to  carry  a  football  fifty  yards  down  a  protected 
field,  amidst  the  cheers  of  twenty  thousand  people. 
Even  this  would  not  mean  so  much  as  the  sense  of  loyalty, 
the  consciousness  of  honor,  the  life  standard  of  achieve- 
ment that  his  athletic  discipline  involved. 

The  element  of  sharing  in  play  has  already  been  re- 
ferred to,  and  it  seems  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  it  has 
a  close  relation  to  comradeship,  mutual  endeavor  and  the 
capacity  for  team  work  for  good  causes. 

Play,  within  recognizable  limits,  develops  self-control. 
When  a  football  player,  as  J.  Lewis  Paton  says,  "  has, 
with  the  ball  in  his  hands,  broken  through  the  opposing 
lines,  receiving  in  the  process  a  whack  on  the  head  and  a 
kick  on  the  shins,  and  then,  triumphantly  crossing  the 
line  and  touching  down  the  ball  between  the  enemy's 
goal  posts,  is  recalled  by  the  referee's  whistle  and  his  try 
is  disallowed  because  the  referee  had  thought  he  had  run 
on  to  the  touch-line  —  that  not  being  the  case  —  then, 
I  say,  if  the  boy  bears  all  that  without  mentioning  any 
towns  in  Holland,  but  smiles  genially  at  the  referee  and 
the  fullback  who  hacked  him,   and  starts  off  again  to 


PLAY  127 

play  up  and  play  the  game  as  hard  as  ever  —  then,  I 
say,  however  ignorant  that  boy  may  be  of  Bucephalus, 
he  has  learned  in  practice  the  lesson  of  self-control;  and 
I  don't  see  myself  how  he  could  learn  it  better." 

Play  involves  an  increasing  element  of  self -direction, 
than  which  no  moral  quality  is  more  needed  today  in 
personal  and  public  life.  "  The  moral  value  of  play  in 
this  respect  arises,"  says  Hoben,  "  from  the  instant  muscu- 
lar response  to  volition.  Delay,  half-hearted  response, 
inattention,  preoccupation,  whimsicalness,  carelessness, 
and  every  sluggish  performance  of  the  order  of  the  will, 
disqualify  the  player,  so  that  when  we  take  into  account 
the  adolescent  passion  to  excel,  and  the  fact  that  eighty 
per  cent  of  the  games  of  this  period  are  characterized  by 
intense  physical  activity,  we  are  forced  to  place  the 
highest  valuation  on  play  as  a  moral  educator;  for  this 
enthronement  of  the  will  over  the  body,  although  having 
to  do  with  affairs  of  no  permanent  importance,  has  great 
and  abiding  value  for  every  future  transaction  in  life." 

The  Utilization  of  Play 

The  writer  has  in  a  recent  study  (published  in  a  "  Man- 
ual of  Play  ")  been  amazed  to  discover  how  many  ap- 
parently unused  opportunities  are  in  the  spontaneous 
plays  of  young  children.  Beginning  with  the  eagerness 
of  the  child  for  sense  experiences,  which  we  may  satisfy 
by  presenting  to  him  many  objects,  hard  and  soft,  smooth 
and  rough,  regular  and  irregular  in  shape,  light  and  heavy, 
we  find  him  starting  to  examine,  take  apart,  put  together 
and  construct.  Then  he  begins  to  inquire,  and  his  doll 
becomes  a  baby,  his  blocks  a  train,  his  cart  a  horse  and  a 
shawl  hung  over  a  table  a  tent. 

We  meet  these  manifestations  with  indifference  and 
often  with  folly.  One  form  of  folly  is  that  of  ignoring 
play  and  thus  leaving  the  child  famished  for  the  ex- 
periences and  expressions  which  could  be  so  educative 
to  him.  Another  folly  is  to  debauch  the  play  instinct  by 
submerging  the  child  in  a  pile  of  toys  so  elaborately 
constructed    and    equipped    with    so    many    mechanical 


128       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

devices  that  they  leave  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  look 
on  or  to  break  them  by  taking  them  to  pieces.  It  has 
been  found  that  a  simple,  inexpensive  but  varied  store 
of  playthings,  home-made  rather  than  store-bought,  and 
selected  for  the  variety  of  experiences  to  which  they 
lead,  will  do  more  for  a  child  than  several  years'  schooling. 
Wooden  toys  are  usually  preferable  to  cast-iron  ones, 
because  the  child  can  alter  them  with  a  knife,  though 
certain  metal  building  toys  give  great  interest  and  are 
of  value  to  the  child  who  is  attracted  toward  mechanics 
and  engineering.  Above  all,  let  the  child  make  his  own 
toys,  urging  him  to  supply  the  inventiveness  while  you 
make  such  technical  suggestions  as  to  detail  as  may  be 
requested. 

Organized  play,  in  the  form  of  athletics,  has  many 
excellencies  and  needs  many  reforms.  The  great  field 
games  show  a  steady  improvement,  in  the  humanizing 
of  rules,  skill  in  coaching  and  care  of  the  players,  sports- 
manlikeness  in  action  and  in  the  accessories,  but  they 
deserve  criticism  yet  in  that  they  are  spectacles  more  than 
games.  The  extreme  publicity  which  they  give  to  school 
boys  is  to  a  degree  unfortunate,  though  the  young  hero 
often  learns  thereby  how  fickle  is  popular  applause.  They 
no  doubt  assume  too  great  a  share  of  the  attention,  not 
only  of  the  player,  but  of  the  whole  school.  But  they  have 
two  faults  that  are  more  serious.  One  is  that  they  hold 
aloft  the  too-American  ideal  of  playing  for  the  victory 
rather  than  for  the  game  itself.  "  Victory  at  any  price," 
even  of  fairness  and  honor  is  too  often  the  aim.  The 
other  is  that  they  tend  too  much  to  develop  the  few  who 
excel  rather  than  to  give  pleasure  and  profit  in  participa- 
tion to  the  many.  We  are  too  far  yet  from  the  English 
custom  which  calls  upon  any  school  boy  to  enter  a  contest 
and  call  it  a  good  game  if  he  has  put  his  best  into  it, 
whether  he  has  won  or  not.  Especially  have  we  neglected 
the  play-interests  of  our  girls,  who  too  often  after  they 
enter  high  school  retire  to  the  bleachers  and  exercise 
only  in  cheering  on  the  players.  A  wholesome,  attractive 
play  crusade  for  older  girls  is  very  much  in  order. 


PLAY  129 

A  Special  Discussion  of  Dramatic  Play 
The  dramatic  instinct  is  an  expression  of  the  impulse 
to  make  use  of  the  imagination.  Passive  imagination  is 
known  as  day-dreaming.  Play  and  dramatics  are  ex- 
amples of  active  imagination.  The  very  young  child 
expresses  the  dramatic  instinct  entirely  by  imitation. 
He  imitates  whatever  he  sees  adults  do.  At  about  three 
years,  children  begin  to  imitate  the  ideas  of  adults 
rather  than  the  exact  things  they  do.  Now  their  imita- 
tion becomes  imaginative.  It  seems  to  be  a  hunger  to 
realize  life  to  its  fullest.  Dramatic  play  is  at  first  individu- 
alistic but  gradually  becomes  social.  Some  of  the  ex- 
pressions of  it  are  changing  a  dog  into  a  child,  a  broom- 
stick into  a  horse  and  in  playing  grown  up.  At  about 
ten  years,  children  begin  to  take  pleasure  in  expressing 
dramatic  ideas  to  an  audience  and  this  desire,  according 
to  the  degree  to  which  it  finds  exercise,  lasts  more  or  less 
throughout  life. 

The  values  of  dramatic  play  are  many.  It  awakens  a 
child's  thinking.  He  remembers  best  what  he  learns 
dramatically.  He  understands  actions,  purposes,  traits 
and  customs  to  which  he  would  otherwise  be  a  stranger. 
Life  becomes  larger  as  he  puts  himself  in  the  place  of 
another.  Dramatic  play  develops  resourcefulness  in 
spontaneous  interests  and  enthusiasm  and  brings  out 
initiative  and  ingenuity,  the  power  of  action  in  groups 
and  of  unselfish  co-operation.  It  relates  itself  to  English, 
elocution,  drawing  and  craftsmanship.  It  has  an  im- 
portant part  in  helping  the  child  to  decide  upon  his  future. 
It  has  moral  value  because  it  stimulates  a  sympathetic 
philosophy  of  life  and  helps  the  child  to  understand  moral 
issues  by  having  imitative  experiences  of  them.  Because 
it  gives  joy  it  also  gives  strength.  Cabot  says  that 
"  impersonation  is  the  chief  part  of  morals,"  by  which 
he  means  that  to  play  a  noble  part  helps  one  to  become 
noble. 

Dramatic  opportunities  in  the  home  are  these,  in  the 
order  in  which  they  come ; 


130       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

1.  Imitative  play. 

2.  Imaginative  games  and  play  with  toys,  costumes  and 
home-made  properties. 

3.  Serial  dramatic  play,  i.e.,  dramatic  games  taken  up 
day  after  day  for  a  considerable  period. 

4.  Dramatic  or  folk  dancing. 

5.  Dramatic  parties  with  tableaux,  "  statues,"  cha- 
rades, extemporaneous  story-telling  play. 

6.  Home  theatricals. 

7.  Dramatized  work,  i.e.,  work  glorified  by  the  imagina- 
tion. 

8.  Clubs  based  on  imaginative  play,  such  as  the  Boy 
Scouts. 

9.  Dramatic  self-government;  co-operative  dramatics 
in  the  school  or  church. 

10.  Theatre  going. 

Almost  any  active  use  of  the  imagination  is  more  valu- 
able to  the  child  than  such  a  passive  use  as  is  represented 
in  attendance  at  a  theatre  or  motion-picture  show.  These 
forms  of  entertainment  are  objectionable  for  young  people 
on  account  of  the  late  hours,  excitement  and  the  strain 
upon  the  eyes  and  attention.  Older  children  should  be 
taken  to  the  theatre  rather  than  sent,  so  that  the  plays 
seen  may  be  known  and  interpreted  by  the  parents. 
The  evils  of  the  theatre  are:  less  refined  vocabularies, 
interests  undesirable  for  children,  weakness  of  moral  tone, 
dreaminess  and  unrest.  The  advantages  are:  greater 
power  of  expression  through  beautiful  words  and  actions, 
better  understanding  of  literature,  gain  in  courtesy  and 
the  sharpening  of  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 

The  theatre  is  discussed  more  fully  in  Chapter  XXIX. 

Reading  References 

An  excellent  arrangement  of  games  by  grades  is  furnished  in  Johnson's 
"  Education  through  Play  and  Games."  An  endeavor  to  give  a  similar 
grading  of  free  play  is  furnished  in  Forbush's  "  Manual  of  Play,"  in-which 
also  are  discussed  dramatic  play,  constructive  play,  serial  play  and  other 
forms  of  expressive  action.  "  Play  as  Education,"  by  Joseph  Lee,  is  a 
charming  discussion  by  our  leading  playground  philanthropist.  Curtis' 
"  The  Dramatic  Instinct  in  Education  "  is  our  most  thorough  work  upon 
its  subject.  Miss  Bancroft's  "  Games  for  Playground,  Home,  School  and 
Gymnasium,"  is  the  best  compendium  and  book  of  rules  for  social  games. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
WORK 

Work  for  children  has  hitherto  been  chiefly  studied 
from  the  economic  standpoint.  We  have  become  so 
ashamed  of  and  alarmed  at  the  conditions  of  child  labor 
—  and  justly  —  that  we  forget  that  work,  wisely  planned 
and  supervised,  is  one  of  childhood's  wholesome 
experiences'. 

In  our  study  we  have  already  learned  that,  while  play 
gives  valuable  opportunity  for  will  training,  since  its 
end  is  in  itself  and  not  in  any  finished  product,  it  does  not 
furnish  all  the  drill  that  the  will  needs  in  the  conquest  of 
obstacles.  If  our  elaborate  group  games  seem  an  excep- 
tion to  this  statement,  yet  we  can  attribute  to  them  the 
element  of  conquest  in  only  a  limited  field  and  that  apart 
from  the  ordinary  life,  and  we  must  not  overestimate 
the  possibility  of  transferring  this  kind  of  power  into  the 
regular  channels  of  action.  Certainly  the  free  play  of 
young  children  gives  very  little  training  in  persistence 
and  patience. 

In  the  newly  shaping  science  of  vocational  guidance 
nothing  is  more  clearly  emerging  into  view  than  the  fact 
that  opportunity  for  a  young  person  to  try  himself  out 
early  by  repeated  experiments  is  the  most  valuable  way 
to  self-realization.  Such  experiments  are  least  expensive 
if  they  may  be  made  during  school  days  and  are  least 
wasteful  of  time  when  they  involve  the  smallest  degree 
of  wandering  from  one  apprenticeship  to  another.  With 
industry  as  at  present  organized  there  is  little  time  for 
feeling  one's  way,  small  patience  with  young  workmen  who 
come  in  for  a  while  "  to  see  how  they  like  it,"  and  yet 
the  instinct  to  play  with  one's  work  and  to  see  how  one 
likes  it  as  a  steady  occupation  is  entirely  wholesome  and 
should  have  some  place  in  the  order  of  things. 

131 


132       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

The  attitude  of  respect  for  work  is  itself  of  the  greatest 
social  value.  A  school  man  has  recently  pointed  out  the 
conscious  contrast  which  exists  between  the  workingman 
who  goes  to  work  in  his  overalls  at  seven  o'clock  and  works 
hard  until  six  and  his  son  who  goes  to  high  school  in  a 
white  collar  at  nine,  gets  out  at  three,  plays  football  or 
loafs  downtown  until  supper-time  and  then  comes  home 
to  meet  his  tired  father.  This  man  thinks  our  schools 
are  distinctly  educating  children  to  hate  work,  except 
the  kind  that  may  be  done  while  wearing  a  white  collar. 
One  of  the  first  and  hardest  lessons  a  boy  has  to  learn 
in  a  factory,  or  a  girl  in  an  office,  is  respect '  for  clothes 
that  are  suitable  for  one's  task. 

Work  as  Fellowship 

Some  parents  find  it  difficult  to  get  close  to  their  children 
in  play,  but  few,  who  are  patient  about  it,  find  fellowship 
hard  when  they  work  together.  Still  better,  they  dis- 
cover that  mutual  work-experiences  are  valuable  in  help- 
ing a  child  to  right  relations  in  his  home.  Certain  un- 
pleasant and  unfortunate  tendencies  are  soon  corrected 
by  the  discipline  of  work.  The  child,  for  instance,  is 
likely  to  be  careless  about  caring  for  and  replacing  his 
things  until  he  is  made  responsible  for  them  and  learns 
that  nobody  else  will  protect  them  if  he  fails  to  do  so. 
He  is  likely  to  tyrannize  over  servants  unless  he  learns, 
through  daily  duties  of  his  own,  to  sympathize  with  them 
and  treat  them  with  consideration.  He  is  also  likely  to 
become  somewhat  helpless  if  there  are  nursemaids  or 
other  servants  in  the  home  unless  he  is  obliged  to  wait 
upon  himself.  He  is  certain  to  become  selfish  if  he  has 
no  time-filler  but  play  and  is  always  served  by  others. 
He  can  never  enter  into  the  sense  of  partnership  in  the 
home  life  if  he  remains  always  a  demander  and  is  not 
regularly  a  donor.  Self-reliance  cannot  be  his  unless  he 
has  from  early  childhood  been  exposed  regularly  to  situa- 
tions that  are  challenging  to  industry,  patience  and 
resourcefulness. 

In  the  days  when  large  families,  lack  of  servants  and 


WORK  133 

the  countless  demands  of  farm  work  were  the  rule,  the 
problem  of  work  for  children  solved  itself,  but  today, 
especially  in  households  where  there  are  few  chores  and 
these  are  performed  by  servants,  or  by  persons  paid  by 
the  hour,  real  ingenuity  and  forethought  are  required  to 
keep  children  healthily  busy.  Even  the  care  of  little 
children  by  the  older  ones  is  less  necessary  —  for  there  is 
often  but  one  child,  or  two. 

A  husband  and  wife  of  wealth  recently  became  so 
thoroughly  impressed  with  the  unfortunate  effect  upon 
their  children  of  the  constant  presence  of  servants  and 
nurses,  the  absolute  idleness  and  indolence  of  the  children 
and  the  lack  of  opportunity  on  their  own  part  to  keep 
close  to  them,  that  they  inaugurated  a  radical  and  suc- 
cessful experiment  in  home,  education.  They  gave  up  a 
projected  addition  to  the  house  which  they  did  not  need, 
they  used  the  money  to  equip  their  home  with  the  latest 
labor-saving  apparatus,  including  an  electric  range,  a 
laundry  machine  and  a  dish-washing  machine,  and  they 
discharged  all  their  servants.  Then  the  father  as  well 
as  the  mother  actively  organized  and  did  the  housework, 
with  the  aid  of  their  four  children,  to  each  of  whom  was 
assigned  his  own  share  of  the  work.  In  the  record  of  their 
experiment  they  testify  to  the  improvement  in  the  health 
and  spirits  of  all  their  children,  their  increased  resource- 
fulness, the  new  comradeship  and  affection  and  particularly 
the  natural  and  fruitful  opportunity  that  unexpectedly 
came  to  revive  family  worship  and  Bible  study  at  the  close 
of  the  meal  which  all  had  prepared  as  well  as  partaken. 

The  great  difficulty  is  to  arrange  for  educative  work  in 
a  city  home.  A  boy  may  assume  the  responsibility  of  the 
furnace,  a  girl  (or  even  a  boy)  may  learn  to  do  the  family 
marketing,  but  there  are  few  chores  available  in  a  home 
that  is  part  of  a  block  or  that  is  upstairs  in  a  flat.  Many 
migrations  of  families  into  the  country  have  been  explained 
by  the  parental  recognition  of  the  sanifying  effects  of 
work  in  the  yard  and  garden  and  in  the  care  of  animals. 
Our  need  in  the  city  is  to  devise  small  experimental 
commercial   transactions   in    the   way   of   salesmanship, 


134       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

manufacturing  or  work  after  school,  which  shall,  without 
the  abuse  of  child  labor,  give  the  child  some  taste  of 
commercial  life.  These  are  to  city  children  fully  as 
inspiring  as  chores,  and  more  in  line  with  their  probable 
future  vocations. 

The  Educational  Value  of  Home  Work 
Work  at  home  has  an  educational  value  for  which  there 
is  no  substitute.  Dr.  Francis  A.  Walker  and  Dr.  G. 
Stanley  Hall  wrote  essays  that  have  become  classics 
showing  the  varied  and  practical  educational  results  that 
came  when  boys  and  girls  were  apprenticed  to  their 
fathers  and  mothers  in  farm  and  household  tasks.  Efforts 
have  been  made,  in  manual  training  and  domestic  science 
courses  in  the  schools,  to  provide  substitutes  for  such  home 
education.  Of  late,  however,  the  pendulum  is  swinging 
back,  and  the  possibility  is  being  seen  of  helping  the  home 
to  reassume  tasks  which  it  had  abdicated.  In  many 
counties  of  several  states,  school  credits  are  given  for 
home-helping,  and  no  valid  objection  appears  to  have 
been  made  save  that  the  way  the  work  is  done  may  not 
make  it  worth  crediting.  Perhaps  the  -school  will  go  a 
step  further  and  show  parents  how  to  teach  their  children 
to  work.  In  Massachusetts  they  have  what  they  call 
the  "  home  project  plan  "  of  encouraging  young  people 
to  work  out  some  of  their  textbook  lessons  on  the  farm, 
in  the  garden  and  in  the  house.  The  Achievement  Club 
movement,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Federal  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  is  supervising  a  quantity  of  en- 
deavor by  Corn-raising  Clubs  and  Home-making  Clubs 
all  over  the  country.  So  far,  these  schemes  have  been 
applicable  chiefly  to  rural  children.  There  is  much  more 
pressing  need  that  the  problem  of  home  occupation  or 
work  be  solved  for  families  that  live  in  flats  or  in  the  other 
restricted  quarters  in  cities,  where  there  are  fewer  tasks 
at  hand,  where  the  allurement  of  the  street  is  ever  present 
and  where  constant  contact  of  parents  and  children  makes 
alleviation  and  forbearance  and  fellowship  more  essential. 
It  may  be  that  communities  that  find  expensive  indus- 


WORK  135 

trial  equipment  for  their  schools  beyond  their  reach 
will  learn  to  get  creditable  practice  work  done  in  home 
laboratories  and  shops.  In  Gary  they  are  already  using 
artisans  and  workmen  about  the  school  buildings  as 
teachers  and  the  repairing  and  construction  work  as 
object  lessons.  In  Crete,  Nebraska,  a  movement  began 
which  has  already  spread  to  over  half  a  hundred  towns 
in  that  State  for  using  the  kitchens  of  the  community 
as  laboratories  and  the  housewives  as  teachers  for  domestic 
science  courses  that  are  supervised  by  the  schools. 

The  remark  that  was  made  above  about  the  difficulty 
of  getting  home  work  properly  performed  has  not  done 
justice  to  the  importance  of  this  need.  It  is  not  merely 
that  the  child  who  has  been  taught  at  home  to  work 
directly,  swiftly  and  silently  is  more  valuable  to  industry, 
but  it  is  because  the  habit  of  doing  work  in  this  way 
eliminates  waste  and  leaves  time  for  other  things  that 
are  worth  while.  "  Efficiency  "  methods  are  getting 
even  into  the  kitchen  nowadays.  There  are  still  those 
who  sneer  at  refinement  as  weakening  and  even  degrading, 
but  the  homely  arts  of  life  dispose  of  clutter,  loose  ends 
and  perpetual  friction  and  add  moral  strength  to  hours 
set  free  for  intellectual  and  social  uses.  To  such  high 
results  may  home  work  well  done  attain. 

Work  and  Character 
Still  greater  is  our  need  to  use  work  to  its  fullest,  as 
God  intended,  for  character-making.  We  need  not 
enumerate  its  moral  possibilities.  Some  cities  have 
begun  efforts  in  this  direction.  There  is  a  national  thrift 
movement  which  deserves  encouragement.  In  Canton, 
Ohio,  a  record  is  made  of  the  money  earned  each  summer 
by  the  pupils  in  the  high  school.  Still  more  worth  while 
would  it  be  to  know  and  supervise  the  ways  in  which  the 
money  is  made.  In  one  middle  western  community  the 
habits  learned  by  the  boys  who  went  away  summers  to 
work  in  hotels  and  on  lake  steamers  infected  the  school 
with  vice  after  their  return.  A  few  arrangements  have 
been  made  in  the  direction  of  arranging  for  and  super- 


136       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

vising  the  summer-time  work  of  young  people.  E.  W. 
Weaver  of  Brooklyn  arranged  to  have  some  of  the  school 
boys  of  his  city  pick  up  apples  in  Dutchess  County, 
and  later  under  his  stimulus  a  plan  was  worked  out  by 
which  high  school  boys  and  girls  offered  themselves  as 
guides  and  caretakers  of  small  groups  of  children  to  go 
to  the  parks,  museums  and  beaches  during  vacation. 
William  A.  McKeever  gathered  thirty  boys  for  a  summer 
and  found  that  the  product  of  their  work,  under  a  skilled 
leader  who  taught  them  to  play  as  well  and  who  camped 
out  with  them,  paid  the  leader's  salary,  and  thus  pointed 
the  way  to  a  self-supporting  method  of  using  the  summer- 
time as  a  school  of  wholesome  work. 

So  far  there  seem  to  be  few  business  men  who  can  find 
educative  work  for  young  people  who  can  give  only  two 
or  three  months  of  their  time.  Wholesome  and  even 
uplifting  as  are  the  camps  conducted  by  private  schools 
and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  they  are  inevitably  seasons  of 
uninterrupted  play  and  of  spending  rather  than  earning 
money.  A  task  of  sane  helpfulness  and  perhaps  of  some 
economic  value  both  present  and  future  would  be  under- 
taken by  anyone  who  could  devise  suitable  work-camps 
for  school  boys  and  girls.  The  Boy  Scouts  and  the  Camp- 
fire  Girls  would  seem  to  have  a  peculiar  opportunity  in 
such  a  field. 

Reading  References 

The  author  has  written  a  booklet  entitled,  "  How  to  Do  Home  Work 
Right,"  which  seems  to  be  the  first  literature  in  its  field.  A  companion 
pamphlet  "  Money-Making  and  Thrift  for  Boys  and  Girls  "  outlines  some 
practicable  projects  for  young  people  in  after-school  hours  and  makes 
suggestions  about  accounting  and  saving.  Both  are  published  by  the 
American  Institute  of  Child  Life,  Philadelphia.  Davis'  "  Vocational 
and  Moral  Guidance  "  shows  how  (especially  in  Chapters  IV,  VI,  of  Part 
I,  and  II,  IX  of  Part  II)  the  school  and  the  public  library  may  establish 
the  habit  of  thinking  properly  about  work.  The  Department  of  Education 
publishes  a  report  on  the  Gary  schools,  the  Bureau  of  Plant  Industry 
furnishes  information  about  the  Achievement  Club  movement.  Mc- 
Keever's  plan  is  described  in  his  pamphlet,  "  Vacation  Employment," 
obtainable  of  the  author  at  the  University  of  Kansas,  Lawrence,  Kansas. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  STORY 

The  story  has,  like  play,  been  getting  a  large  valuation 
lately.  Not  only  so,  but  we  are  being  told  that  it  is  "  an 
art";  persons  are  telling  stories  "professionally"  and 
there  are  even  schools  where  the  art  is  taught.  This  is 
a  bit  alarming  to  a  mother  whose  children  are  always 
clamoring,  "  Tell  me  a  story! " 

Yet,  after  all,  what  is  to  be  said  about  the  story  is  very 
simple.  It  is  an  art  —  perhaps  the  most  ancient  of  all  arts, 
and  therefore  the  simplest.  But  it  is  a  luxury  as  well  as 
an  art,  and  no  mother  who  has  learned  how  —  and  every 
mother  may  learn  how  without  difficulty  —  will  think  of 
it  as  anything  but  one  of  the  most  joyous  privileges  of 
her  life. 

The  Interest  in  Stories 

Children's  interest  in  stories  seems  to  follow  closely 
the  order  in  which  the  great  types  of  stories  appeared  in 
history.  Little  children,  old  enough  to  understand  any- 
thing, like  stories  with  a  strong  sense  appeal,  in  which 
rhymes  and  phrases  are  repeated  such  as  the  "  trip-trop, 
trip-trop  "  of  goats  walking  over  a  bridge,  in  "The  Billy 
Goats  Gruff, ' '  or  stories  in  which  colors  or  touch-sensations 
or  good  things  to  eat  are  vividly  told  about,  as,  "and 
where  is  my  soup  gone?"  of  the  "  Three  Bears."  Finger 
plays  and  nursery  rhymes  come  along  with  these.  Then 
and  a  little  later  imaginative  stories  are  liked,  fairy 
stories  most  of  all,  fables  mildly,  myths  and  legends  after 
a  while  and  parables  and  allegories  with  some  degree 
of  resignation.  The  golden  age  of  fairy  tales  is  believed 
to  lie  between  four  and  seven.  A  fable  is  a  sort  of 
desiccated  animal  story  and  with  the  parable  and  alle- 
gory is  the  favorite  of  the  adult  who  wants  to  "  improve  " 
the    child.     At   about    ten   comes    the    first  interest  in 

137 


138         CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

hero-stories,  biography  and  realistic  stories  of  everyday 
life.  During  adolescence  there  is  a  second  age  of  im- 
aginativeness when  stories  of  romance  are  loved,  but 
this  is  beyond  the  time  when  a  child  usually  likes  to 
listen  to  stories.  In  his  eager  haste  he  prefers  to  read 
them  to  himself. 

The  Value  of  Story-Telling 
The  story  has  physical  value.     In  the  home  or  in  the 
midst  of  weariness  or  commotion  in  school  it  calms  the 
perturbed  spirit  and  helps  prepare  the  body  either  for 
sleep  or  for  renewed  activity. 

It  has  intellectual  value.  Richard  M.  Hodge  goes  so 
far  as  to  call  the  story  "  the  language  of  childhood," 
and  says  that  it  is  our  most  direct  and  satisfactory  means 
of  communicating  to  them  our  ideas.  Stories  are  pictures 
of  life,  and  next  to  real  experiences  are  our  best  way  of 
interpreting  life  to  the  young.  They  influence  especially 
the  higher  faculties,  for  they  help  the  imagination,  aid 
the  child  as  he  retells  them  in  his  free  and  picturesque 
use  of  language,  and  are  a  source  of  joy,  which  is  to  say,  a 
source  of  strength. 

The  moral  value  of  the  story  has  been  attested  in  all 
times.  Even  savage  tribes  use  stories  consciously  and 
regularly  as  the  chief  means  of  giving  to  children  not  only 
the  tribal  traditions,  but  the  tribal  morals,  and  the  testi- 
mony of  anthropologists  is  that  in  this  they  are  very 
successful.  Stories  help  a  child  to  know  what  is  good. 
In  myths  and  legends  at  least,  the  hero  is  more  true  to 
life  than  life  itself,  for  these  heroic  characters  are  the 
sublimated  expression,  sharpened  with  age  and  conviction, 
of  the  virtues  they  personify.  The  child  can  always  see 
goodness  in  a  man  when  he  cannot  in  a  precept.  Because 
they  are  so  interesting,  stories  incite  moral  thoughtful- 
ness.  "  They  reduce  the  amount  of  moral  illiteracy." 
They  help  the  child  to  feel  what  is  good,  for  they  not  only 
show,  by  making  the  hero  triumph,  that  goodness  is  worth 
while,  but  they  make  the  child  by  the  magic  of  their 
telling    want    goodness    to    triumph.     They    have    some 


THE   STORY  139 

effect  on  the  will,  because  they  force  the  child  at  least  in 
imagination  to  take  sides.  He  usually  personalizes  him- 
self as  the  hero  of  whom  he  hears,  and  he  chooses  as  his 
hero  chooses. 

The  moral  value  of  the  story  is  entwined  with  its  social 
value.  The  reason  why  it  is  so  much  better  to  tell  than 
to  read  a  story  is  because  the  story-teller  can  add  his  own 
personality  and  sympathy  to  the  tale.  If  the  child  be- 
lieves in  the  story-teller,  then  he  believes  in  the  stories, 
and  assumes  in  hearing  them  the  moral  attitude  which 
the  teller  assumes  in  telling  them. 

Of  course  stories  have  their  limitations.  No  child 
can  do  good  while  he  is  sitting  in  a  chair  listening  to  a 
story-teller,  but  the  story-teller,  particularly  a  mother, 
can  exercise  the  child  by  having  him  retell  the  stories, 
act  them  out  in  play  and  do  something  good  for  which  a 
story  has  been  the  stimulation. 

The  Elements  of  a  Story 

Every  good  story  has  four  elements ;  they  always  appear 
and  always  in  the  same  order.     They  are  these: 

A  good  beginning. 

Action. 

Suspense. 

The  solution. 

It  is  usually  a  good  beginning  to  introduce  the  hero  in 
an  interesting  situation.  "  Once  there  was  a  little  Indian 
boy  who  took  a  ride  on  the  cowcatcher  of  an  engine"; 
this  sentence,  uttered  quietly,  once  completely  subdued 
a  roomful  of  street  boys  who  had  gathered  to  torment  a 
new  story-teller,  but  who  were  charmed  and  expectant 
at  such  a  promising  start. 

Then  something  must  take  place  at  once.  Action  is 
what  differentiates  the  story  from  the  sermon,  the  oration 
or  several  other  forms  of  literature.  The  story  is  allied 
to  the  drama,  which  moves  swiftly  on  from  one  exciting 
scene  to  another. 

But  the  action  must  not  be  clear  to  the  end  from  the 
beginning.     Otherwise  the  story  is  all  told  before  it  is 


140       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

fairly  started.  There  must  be  uncertainty  as  to  how  the 
characters  will  behave,  what  decision  the  hero  will  make 
and  just  how  it  will  all  come  out.  Of  only  one  thing  the 
child  need  be  sure,  that  it  is  not  going  to  be  a  tragedy, 
for  sad  stories  have  very  small  place  in  a  child's  experience. 
Finally,  the  solution,  which  should  usually  be  short 
and  sudden. 

How  to  Tell  Stories 

The  one  word  is:  Visualize.  Miss  Sarah  Cone  Bryant 
put  the  art  in  one  sentence  when  she  said:  "  I  like  to 
think  of  the  story-teller  standing  at  a  great  window 
overlooking  a  busy  street  or  a  picturesque  square,  and 
reporting  with  gusto  to  the  comrade  in  the  rear  of  the 
room  what  of  mirth  or  sadness  he  sees,"  as  if  —  let  me 
continue  —  that  comrade  could  never  know  what  is  hap- 
pening save  as  he  gets  it  through  the  story-teller's  voice. 
To  see  vividly  and  tell  with  animation  and  directness  — 
this  is  good  story-telling.  This  rules  out  elocutionism, 
gesture  save  as  it  is  unconscious,  and  unnecessary  detail 
and  deviation. 

The  reason  the  story-teller  may  not  gesture,  as  does 
the  actor,  is  because  his  purpose  is  different  from  that  of 
the  actor.  The  actor  is  the  hero,  and  so  he  represents 
him  in  costume,  action  and  gesture.  But  the  story-teller 
points  to  the  hero,  and  so  does  nothing,  by  costume,  act 
or  gesture,  to  distract  attention  to  himself.  He  is  dealing 
with  an  even  finer  art  than  the  actor's,  for  he  is  trying  so 
to  work  upon  the  imagination  of  the  child  that  he  can 
recreate  the  hero  and  the  action  and  see  both  with  his 
inward  eye. 

Details  and  digressions  tend  to  weaken  attention  and 
cause  the  child  to  lose  the  thread  of  the  story.  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  teller  is  careless  of  his  words.  He  may 
be  very  choice  with  them,  so  long  as  they  form  the  pig- 
ments with  which  he  mixes  his  colors.  One  of  Hans 
Andersen's  stories  begins  with  such  a  swift  painting  of 
sunlight  and  bright  colors  that  you  know  at  once  how 
happy  the  story  is  to  be.     One  of  Edmund   Leamy's 


THE  STORY  141 

closes  with  such  a  cadence  of  words  that  it  leaves  the 
child's  heart  satisfied  and  his  mind  soothed  for  slumber. 

The  Plot 

There  are  said  to  be  only  fifty  stories  in  the  world,  so 
there  cannot  be  many  kinds  of  plots. 

Children's  stories  generally  follow  one  of  a  very  few 
simple  lines  of  construction.  Angela  M.  Keyes  names 
them:  "A  single  line  of  sequence,"  as  "The  Sleeping 
Beauty" ;  "  the  three-parallel  line,"  as  "  The  Three  Bears" ; 
"  two  contrasting  courses  of  action,"  as  "  Cinderella." 

Story-Telling  Devices 

Use  direct  rather  than  indirect  discourse.  This  gives 
vivacity  to  the  style  and  adds  movement  and  lifelikeness 
to  the  tale.  Children  often  personalize  the  hero  as 
themselves,  and  it  helps  this  identification  to  hear  the 
exact  words  which  the  hero  utters. 

Use  repetition  for  the  purposes  of  memorizing  and 
easy  recall  by  the  child.  Not  only  the  repetition  of 
phrases  and  the  parallelism  of  plot  are  desirable,  but  the 
child,  as  so  many  of  us  know,  generally  prefers  an  old 
story  to  any  new  one,  and  wants  to  hear  it  in  the  precise 
language  in  which  it  was  first  told  him. 

Take  your  time.  This  does  not  mean  to  digress  or 
ramble,  but  as  Professor  St.  John  reminds  us:  "  The  floor 
is  yours,  everybody  wants  to  hear  you,  there  is  time  enough 
for  every  point  or  shade  of  meaning,  and  no  one  will 
think  the  story  too  long." 

Get  the  children  to  help  tell  or  retell  the  story.  This 
is  the  most  valuable  kind  of  repetition.  If  a  story  is 
being  told  well,  the  children  will  join  in  the  part  that 
repeats,  perfectly  unconscious  that  they  are  doing  so. 
Or  if  it  is  a  new  story,  such  a  suggestion  as,  "  And  what 
do  you  suppose  the  fairy  godmother  said  when  she  came 
in?"  will  give  the  child  a  chance  to  exercise  his  fancy  and 
to  let  himself  inside  the  tale. 

The  Serial  Story 
To  the  parent  whose  ingenuity  flags  in  creating  new 
characters,  the  device  of  carrying  familiar  persons  through 


142       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

a  succession  of  incidents,  night  after  night,  will  be  helpful, 
and  the  plan  will  be  voted  a  success  by  the  children,  whose 
interest  is  thus  made  cumulative.  The  writer  with  his 
own  children  started  once  with  a  small  boy  who  was  an 
orderly  for  General  Washington,  saw  him  safely  through 
a  brave  career  in  the  Revolution,  took  him  out  into  the 
Western  Reserve  with  the  emigrants  and  even  met  his 
children's  children.     This  took  more  than  a  single  winter. 

Again  he  worked  out.  a  plan  for  co-operative  as  well  as 
serial  story-telling,  by  purchasing  a  large-leaf  notebook, 
in  which  were  traced  the  adventures  of  a  father  and  his 
three  sons  (his  own  family  beneath  a  thin  disguise),  who 
had  been  cast  adrift  on  a  desert  island.  Each  of  the 
children  was  appealed  to  for  incidents  and  drawings,  and 
the  story  was  gradually  written  out  by  the  father  and 
illustrated  by  the  entire  group. 

By  either  of  these  plans  it  is  possible  for  one  who  is  not 
inventive  to  retell  the  great  classical  stories,  whose  worth 
is  sometimes  unexpectedly  tested  by  the  question  whether 
they  have  vitality  enough  to  interest  children. 

Picture  Story-Telling 

A  picture  is  not  only  an  excellent  aid  to  story-telling, 
but  it  aids  in  an  elementary  appreciation  of  art.  Children 
do  not  care  for  art  history,  they  have  no  especial  affinity 
for  masterpieces,  they  are  not,  in  early  life,  observant  of 
details,  but,  as  their  own  drawings  show,  it  is  the  human 
interest  in  a  picture  that  attracts  them.  It  is  pictures 
that  have  such  an  interest  that  we  should  choose  for  them. 
We  should  not  expect  to  inspire  them  with  a  photograph 
of  the  Roman  forum  or  a  reproduction  of  Corot's  Spring- 
time, and  we  have  no  doubt  exaggerated  their  interest  in 
the  Sistine  ("  sixteenth,"  one  boy  wearily  called  it) 
Madonna  or  the"  Mona  Lisa.  But,  according  to  their 
age,  Raeburn's  "  Boy  and  Rabbit,"  Millet's  "  Feeding 
her  Birds,"  Poynter's  "  The  Lion's  Cubs,"  Hunt's  "  The 
Child  in  the  Temple  "  and  Leighton's  "  Wrestling  with 
Death,"  would  draw  the  keenest  attention. 

The  laws  for  story-telling  with  pictures  do  not  differ 


THE   STORY  143 

from  those  for  telling  stories  without  them.  In  general, 
we  point  at  once  to  the  central  figure,  and  tell  something 
lively  about  it,  and  then  work  toward  the  minor  figures 
and  the  details.  A  good  picture,  like  a  good  story, 
generally  begins  in  the  middle  and  from  this  point  we 
work  back  to  the  beginning. 

Stories  for  Moral  Ends 
Purposive  story-telling  has  no  different  technique  from 
story -telling    for    mere    amusement.     But    there    are    a 
few  warnings  that  need  to  be  observed. 

1.  Be  sure  it  is  a  story,  and  not  a  sermon. 

2.  Use  tact  in  the  time  for  telling  it. 

3.  Tell  it  with  enjoyment  and  sympathy  and  not  with 
"  the  high  pulpit  manner." 

4.  Treat  the  moral  as  an  incident.  "  Pluck  it  as  a 
wayside  flower,"  says  Felix  Adler.  Don't  make  it  an 
appendage;  embody  it  in  the  story  itself. 

5.  Still,  let  the  moral  be  visible.  When  Louise 
Seymour  Houghton's  little  daughter  was  told  the  story 
of  the  disobedience  of  Adam  and  Eve  for  some  particular 
local  purpose,  and  lisped,  "  Oh,  if  Eve  hadn't  eaten  that 
apple,  what  a  differenth  to  uth!"  her  mother  confessed 
that  as  a  moral  the  story  had  been  a  failure.  "  Grant, 
Lord,  that  I  may  never  tag  a  moral  to  a  tale,  and  that  I 
may  never  tell  a  tale  without  a  moral,"  was  Henry  Van 
Dyke's  prayer. 

6.  When  it  has  been  told,  let  it  alone. 

Story-Telling  in  the  Home 
Mothers   have   in    stories  a  powerful,    and,    we   fear, 
neglected  instrument  for  every  kind  of  good. 

Stories  give  both  joy  and  content.  They  are  better  for 
wounds  than  kisses  and  they  are  a  never-failing  lure  for 
the  restless  child  who  might  otherwise  forget  how  happy  a 
home  he  has. 

Stories  strengthen  the  love  between  parent  and  child. 
They  clear  up  misunderstandings  and  enable  the  two  to 
travel  together  frequently  into  that  best  place  for  com- 
radeship, fairyland. 


144       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

They  build  the  child's  taste  for  good  books  and  good 
pictures.  They  stimulate  his  imagination  and  lead  him 
into  constructive  and  dramatic  play.  The  school  teacher 
can  identify  the  home  where  there  is  the  habit  of  story- 
telling by  the  superior  alertness  and  resourcefulness  of  its 
children. 

They  help  the  child  over  hard  places  and  reward  faith- 
ful tasks  and  make  up  for  many  childish  disappointments. 

Stories,  with  play,  consecrate  the  home.  The  testimony 
of  a  Philadelphia  police  captain  was  significant:  "  I 
never  knew  children  to  go  wrong  in  a  home  where  parents 
and  children  spent  an  hour  together  after  supper. ' '  Even 
more  significant  was  the  further  testimony  of  this  man 
who  had  been  left  with  motherless  children:  "And  I've 
tried  it  myself." 

Reading  References 

Books  on  Story-Telling 

There  are  many  good  books  on  how  to  tell  stories,  of  quite  equal  value. 
All  those,  except  St.  John's  and  Mrs.  Houghton's,  include  stories  to  tell 
to  children. 

Bryant:  "  How  to  Tell  Stories  to  Children." 

St.  John:  "  Stories  and  Story-Telling  in  Moral  and  Religious  Education." 

Keyes:  "  Stories  and  Story-Telling." 

Cowles:  "  The  Art  of  Story-Telling." 

Bailey:  "  For  the  Story-Teller." 

Forbush:  "  A  Manual  of  Stories." 

Houghton:  "  Telling  Bible  Stories." 

Collections  of  Stories  to  Tell 

The  "  Manual  of  Stories  "  mentioned  above  lists  over  four  hundred  such 
collections,  so  the  available  material  is  plentiful.  Among  the  best  are 
these : 

Bryant:  "  Stories  to  Tell  to  Children." 

Lang:  "  The  Red  Fairy  Book  "  (and  a  dozen  others). 

Wiggin  and  Smith:  "  The  Fairy  Ring." 

Andersen:  "  Fairy  Tales." 

Grimm  Brothers:  "  Fairy  Tales." 

Baldwin:  "  Fifty  Famous  Stories  Retold." 

Sly:  "  World  Stories  Retold." 

Leamy:  "  The  Golden  Spears." 

Lindsay:  "  Mother  Stories." 

Kipling:  "  Just-So  Stories." 

Harris:  "  Nights  with  Uncle  Remus." 


CHAPTER  XX 
READING 

The  reading  interests  of  children  are  parallel  to  their 
story  interests.  Indeed  the  motive  that  impels  a  child 
to  learn  to  read  is  to  be  able  to  get  at  stories  directly 
and  at  will.  And  the  story  interest  remains  the  dominant 
one  all  through  childhood  and  youth  and,  in  the  majority 
of  persons,  through  life.  The  amount  of  fiction  taken 
out  of  any  public  library  is  at  least  equal  to  all  other 
classes  of  books  combined. 

The  early  likings  involve  rhythm,  pictures,  nature, 
wonder  stories  and  stories  of  home  life,  a  composite  whose 
only  centralizing  feature  seems  to  be  that  they  all  have 
to  do  with  living  things  and  that  they  represent  the 
imaginative  and  the  constructive  sides  of  the  child's  own 
nature.  There  is  a  steadily  ascending  curve  as  to  the 
amount  of  reading,  culminating  from  the  twelfth  to  the 
fifteenth  year.  Nearly  twice  as  much  is  read  at  the 
seventh  grade  in  school  as  at  the  third. 

Between  the  tenth  and  twelfth  years  the  interests  of 
boys  and  girls  begin  to  diverge.  At  all  ages  girls  are 
more  amenable  to  suggestions,  boys  are  more  likely  to 
be  prospectors.  Boys  are  more  practical,  girls  are  more 
subjective.  Boys  read  more  in  the  field  of  action,  girls 
in  that  of  emotion.  Boys  read  twice  as  much  travel  and 
history  as  do  girls,  and  two-thirds  as  much  poetry  and 
fiction.  At  the  height  of  adolescence  it  is  stated  that 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  reading  of  boys  is  of  adventure 
and  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  reading  of  girls  is  love 
stories.  Girls,  however,  generally  like  many  books  written 
for  boys,  while  almost  no  boys  like  books  written  for  girls. 
After  the  fever  for  reading  which  culminates  at  fifteen, 
there  is  noticeable  a  distinct  change  in  reading  tastes. 
The  youth  begins  to  find  his  own  and  reads  more  in  the 
field  of  his  own  individuality. 

145 


146       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD   TRAINING 

The  reading  habit  is  by  no  means  universal.  The 
majority  of  boys  and  girls  read  little  but  what  is  pre- 
scribed in  school.  It  is  said  that  ten  per  cent  of  young 
people  do  forty  per  cent  of  the  reading.  There  is  a 
steady  and  rapid  decline  in  the  amount  of  reading  during 
the  last  two  years  of  the  high  school  age.  This  may  be 
accounted  for  in  part  by  the  fact  that  the  youth  now  reads 
more  thoroughly  and  thoughtfully,  but  other  less  pleasant 
reasons  are  given:  the  pressure  of  required  studies  and  of 
home  work,  or,  if  the  young  person  has  left  school,  of  his 
daily  task,  social  engagements,  athletics,  and  even  a 
distaste  for  literature  which  arises  out  of  the  way  it  has 
been  taught.  The  most  potent  of  causes  is  no  doubt  home 
influence.  In  a  house  where  there  are  no  books  and  no 
discussion  of  books,  and  where  the  newspaper  is  the  only 
reading  provided,  it  is  easy  for  the  child  to  accept  what 
is  at  hand.  The  reading  habit  tends  to  atrophy,  and 
Americans  after  thirty-five  are  seldom  readers,  except 
of  that  which  is  ephemeral,  and  even  of  that  but  inat- 
tentively. The  head  of  a  concern  whose  business  it  is 
to  furnish  material  for  newspapers  and  magazines  told 
the  writer  that,  aside  from  the  news  of  the  day,  the 
desires  of  editors  of  magazines  and  of  the  "  feature  " 
pages  of  daily  papers  in  America  are  but  two,  for  material 
which  shall  please  but  not  tax  the  tired  mind  (to  interest 
the  underinterested) ,  and  for  stuff  that  will  buttress  the 
advertising  columns.  Some  allowance  should  be  made 
for  this  apparent  cynicism  when  it  is  remembered  that 
the  average  American  left  school  at  about- the  sixth  grade, 
and  that  therefore  simplicity  is  an  essential  for  that  which 
would  be  read.  It  may  not  be  inspiring,  but  it  is  at  least 
wholesome  that  the  three  or  four  women's  home  magazines 
of  astonishing  circulations  are  made  up  of  the  current 
fashions,  simple  household  devices,  elementary  ideas  about 
child  training  and  love  stories,  and  that  a  weekly  periodical 
which  is  apparently  read  by  every  man  who  rides  ex- 
tensively on  the  train  is  composed  of  stories  of  business 
experiences  and  adventure,  simple  interpretations  of 
current  movements  and  chatter  about  politics. 


READING  147 

Why  Do  We  Read? 

De  Quincey's  classification  seems  likely  to  be  immortal. 
There  are  books  of  knowledge  and  books  of  power.  The 
former  are  written  to  give  information;  they  are  men's 
tools.  The  latter  are  written  to  stir  men's  thoughts, 
feelings  and  imaginations;  they  are  men's  instruments 
of  music  and  joy.  With  one,  man  does  his  work;  with  the 
other,  his  mind  loves  to  play.  It  is  to  the  latter  only 
that  we  give  the  name,  literature.  And  it  is  with  the 
latter  only  that  we  need  to  concern  ourselves.  Men 
must  use  tools,  and  according  to  the  measure  of  their 
ambitions  they  will  use  them.  They  may  use  instru- 
ments of  play,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  great  concern  that 
they  should  use  them  nobly. 

Among  the  many  similar  definitions  of  literature 
perhaps  none  is  better  than  that  by  Barrett  Wendell: 
' '  Literature  is  the  lasting  expression  in  words  of  the  mean- 
ing of  life. ' '  It  would  seem  to  be  the  natural  development 
that,  in  youth,  in  the  days  of  feeling,  books  should  en- 
hance life;  and  that  later,  in  the  days  of  thought,  they 
should  help  us  to  reflect  upon  life.  The  amusement, 
the  diversion,  the  rest  and  recreation  which  many  find  in 
books,  never  pass  beyond  the  first  stage.  The  expressive 
books,  the  romances,  and  they  are  many  and  great,  are 
for  these.  The  minority,  one  may  suppose,  enter  the 
second  stage,  and  read  the  impressive  books,  the  essayists, 
the  critics  of  literature  and  of  life.  ("  The  good  critic," 
says  Anatole  France,  "  is  he  who  narrates  the  adventures 
of  his  soul  among  masterpieces.")  The  distinction  is 
not  one  of  schooling,  but  of  temperament  and  of  ripeness 
of  mind. 

Is  it  Worth  While  to  Read? 

In  this  age  of  Carnegie  libraries  and  universally  pre- 
scribed schooling  the  question  seems  almost  impudent. 
Yet  many  men  are  very  frankly  asking  it.  And  that  the 
majority  of  men  have  actually  answered  the  question  in 
the  negative  is  proven  by  their  own  practice:  except  for 
the  news  of  the  day  and  diversion  in  travel,  the  average 
American  does  not  read. 


148       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

De  Quincey  spoke  of  "  books  of  power,"  but  do  books 
actually  give  power?  C.  Hanford  Henderson,  a  facile 
radical,  it  is  true,  but  one  who  has  been  with  boys  and 
done  things  with  them  for  a  number  of  years,  says  that 
books  give  only  a  second-hand  view  of  life  and  that,  in 
order  to  get  a  lad  into  the  habit  of  observing  and  asking 
directly,  he  would  rather  he  should  not  know  how  to 
read  until  he  was  fourteen,  or  at  least,  twelve.  Gerald 
Stanley  Lee,  another  radical  who  does  seem  to  believe  in 
reading  of  a  sort,  calls  reading  "  hearing  life  with  a  li- 
bretto "  and  says  we  are  "  crowding  great  classics  into  " 
young  folks  when  we  might  be  "  attracting  little  classics 
out  of  them."  Others  think  books  are  benumbing  and 
call  attention  to  the  reading  habit  as  a  kind  of  laziness 
and  self-indulgence.  One  confesses  that  he  does  not  often 
think  of  a  great  explorer  or  engineer  with  a  library,  and 
that  he  feels  an  incongruity  about  Theodore  Roosevelt 
in  the  African  wilderness  with  his  pigskin  library.  Who, 
one  is  tempted  to  ask,  saw  life  more  clearly  and  complete, 
Longfellow  in  his  study  or  Whitman  on  the  Camden 
ferryboat  ?  Which  is  better,  when  our  boy  asks  questions, 
to  send  him  to  a  book  or  to  a  man  who  knows?  Does 
reading  make  a  man  say  "  I  can  "? 

Of  course  this  is  all  a  part  of  that  question  which  seems 
to  be  the  only  one  we  have  the  patience  to  ask  in  America 
today,  the  question  of  Efficiency.  And  the  surprising 
thing  is  that  the  efficiency  experts  themselves  are  begin- 
ning to  speak  on  the  side  of  books.  Not,  of  course,  on 
the  side  of  dilettantism  or  bookishness  or  scholasticism, 
but  they  are  beginning  to  find  out  that  the  best  way  to  get 
a  great  specialist  is  not  to  send  him  to  a  technical  school 
only,  but  to  train  his  imagination,  and  the  nursery  of  the 
imagination  is  —  books.  To  sum  up  many  volumes  of 
discussion,  the  most  recent  trend  of  education  is  to  lessen 
the  use  of  textbooks  in  reading  about  things  in  the  schools 
and  to  increase  habits  of  direct  observation  and  experi- 
ment, and  at  the  same  time  to  encourage  the  love  of  books 
of  imagination  and  power.  This  is  fast  changing  the 
method  of  teaching  English  in  the  secondary  schools. 


READING  149 

We  are  minimizing  what  G.  Stanley  Hall  calls  "  linguistic 
manicuring,"  and  exposing  children  more  freely  to  great 
books,  that  they  may  become,  as  C.  Lewis  Hind  says, 
"  not  learned  —  accretive."  We  are  separating  the  tech- 
nique of  expression,  in  the  drill  of  punctuation,  spelling 
and  composition,  from  the  books  of  life.  For  the  one  we 
must  still  insist  upon  thoroughness,  accuracy  and  correct- 
ness; for  the  other  we  ask  chiefly  freedom.  We  seem  to 
need  for  each  a  different  type  of  teacher  —  for  the  first  that 
product  of  the  school,  the  master;  for  the  second,  that 
product  of  no  school  yet  invented,  the  joy-maker.  (It 
is  hard  to  get  joy-makers  to  teach  school.) 

What  Are  Bad  Books? 

When  we  ask  ourselves  what  children  ought  to  read,  we 
find  it  easier  to  make  an  index  expurgatorius  than  a  golden 
treasury.     What  are  the  bad  books  ? 

There  are  but  two  kinds  of  books  that  are  really  bad; 
they  are  the  weak  books  and  the  vicious  ones.  Very  few 
vicious  books  are  in  the  hands  of  children  under  sixteen 
today.  Even  nickel  novels,  while  full  of  color  and  action 
and  usually  sensational,  are  often  almost  puritanical  in 
their  morals.  The  vicious  books  are  chiefly  the  sex 
novels  that  sell  for  one  dollar  and  thirty  cents,  and  which 
are  therefore  beyond  the  reach  of  children's  purses,  and 
would  not  fall  into  their  hands  if  they  were  not  put  there 
by  their  parents.  But  there  are  many  weak  books,  books 
which  suggest  pessimism,  gloom,  languor  and  sentimental- 
ism.  Of  these  are  examples  in  every  form  of  writing  from 
fairy  stories,  down  through  fiction,  even  to  the  essay. 
And  the  weakest  of  all  to  an  alert  youth  of  any  age  is 
the  book  or  periodical  which,  whatever  its  theme,  is 
"  written  down  "  to  him  to  make  it  "  popular." 

There  are,  of  course,  also  books  which  are  bad  for  a  child 
because  they  are  beyond  him.  Of  these  the  college 
entrance  requirements  used  to  be  full,  and  it  was  these 
that  suggested  the  school  man's  remark  when  he  was 
asked  how  to  cure  a  boy  of  reading  dime  novels.  "  Teach 
dime-novel  reading,"   he   said,   "the  way  we  teach  the 


150       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

high  school  classics.     They  will  never  want  to  read  them 
again." 

How  to  Guide  a  Child  to  Good  Books 

We  speak  here  from  the  standpoint  of  the  home. 

First,  start  with  story-telling,  making  it  a  regular 
appointment  to  tell  children  the  best  we  remember  out 
of  the  great  books  of  the  world. 

Second,  follow  this  by  the  equally  regular  habit  of 
reading  aloud  in  the  home.  Poetry  was  intended  to  be 
read  aloud  only,  and  all  other  literature  is  more  real  to 
the  child  when  given  orally,  with  such  explanation  and 
condensation  as  is  necessary. 

Third,  talk  over  not  only  what  is  read  to  the  child, 
but  what  the  child  reads  himself,  so  that  he  may  get  the 
habit  of  an  active,  thoughtful  and  power-absorbing  rela- 
tion to  books. 

Finally,  place  within  the  reach  of  the  child  a  good  home 
library,  including  books  that  are  supposedly  beyond 
him.  The  best  part  of  reading  is  often  what  the  child 
discovers  for  himself  while  he  is  seated  on  the  floor  leaning 
against  a  bookcase.  The  child  with  such  a  background 
usually  becomes  a  lifelong  and  independent  reader. 

Reading  References 
Miss  Olcott's  "  Children's  Reading  "  is  our  best  book  on  the  subject. 
Mrs.  Arnold's  "  A  Mother's  List  of  Books  for  Children  "  is  a  choice  col- 
lection of  titles.  The  Boy  Scouts  of  America  is  doing  a  needed  service 
in  compiling  and  arranging  for  the  publication  at  a  low  price  of  wholesome 
books  for  boys,  not  classic  in  value,  but  certain  to  be  read  with  interest 
and  profit. 

A  Short  List  of  Books  for  Boys  and  Girls 
Any  endeavor  to  list  the  "  one  hundred  best  "  of  anything  meets  the 
objection  that  there  are  a  second  hundred  which  to  another's  taste  are 
better.     The  following  are  good  books,  and  they  have  proved  literary 
value.     Books  of  nature,  handicraft,  etc.,  are  not  included. 

Picture  Books 
"  Mother  Goose  "  (illustrated  by  Greenaway,  Rackham,  Cory  or  Smith). 
Adelborg:  "  Clean  Peter  and  the  Children  of  Grubbylea." 
Brooke:  "  Children's  Books,"  two  volumes. 
Caldecott:  "  Picture  Books,"  four  volumes. 
Potter;  "  Peter  Rabbit,"  "  Benjamin  Bunny,"  and  others, 


READING  151 

Books  for  Little  Children 
Andersen:  "  Fairy  Tales." 
Grimm:  "  Household  Stories." 
Brown:  "  Book  of  Saints  and  Friendly  Beasts." 
Carroll:  "  Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland." 
Craik:  "  The  Little  Lame  Prince." 
Harris:  "  Nights  with  Uncle  Remus." 
Kipling:  "  The  Jungle  Book." 
Defoe:  "  The  Story  of  Robinson  Crusoe." 
Lang:  "  The  Blue  Fairy  Book." 

Edited  by  Lang:  "  Arabian  Nights  Entertainments." 
Browne:  "  Granny's  Wonderful  Chair." 
Edited  by  Scudder:  "  The  Children's  Book." 
Poems  edited  by  Wiggin:  "  The  Fairy  Ring." 
Stevenson:  "  A  Child's  Garden  of  Verses." 

Stories 

Alcott:  "  Little  Women  "  and  "  Little  Men." 

Baldwin:  "  Fifty  Famous  Stories." 

Bennett:  "  Master  Skylark." 

Blackmore:  "  Lorna  Doone." 

Brooks:  "  Boy  Emigrants." 

Bulwer-Ly tton :  "  Last  Days  of  Pompeii." 

Cervantes  (retold) :  "  Don  Quixote." 

Clemens:  "  The  Prince  and  the  Pauper." 

Cooper:  "  The  Deerslayer." 

Dickens:  "  David  Copperfield." 

Dodge:  "  Hans  Brinker." 

Dumas:  "  The  Three  Guardsmen." 

Hale:  "  The  Man  Without  a  Country." 

Hawthorne:  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables." 

Hughes:  "  Tom  Brown's  Schooldays." 

Hugo,  edited  by  Wiltse:  "  Jean  Valjean." 

Irving:  "  Rip  Van  Winkle." 

Johnson:  "  Stover  at  Yale." 

Kipling:  "  Captains  Courageous." 

Lothrop:  "  Five  Little  Peppers." 

Macleod:  "  The  Book  of  King  Arthur  and  His  Noble  Knights." 

Pyle:  "  Men  of  Iron." 

Reade:  "  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth." 

Scott:  "  Ivanhoe." 

Stevenson:  "  Treasure  Island." 

Wallace:  "  Ben  Hur." 

Wiggin:  "  Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  Farm." 

Books  of  Inspiration 
Poems  edited  by  Chisholm :  ' '  The  Golden  Staircase." 
Poems  edited  by  Porter:  "  Poems  of  Action." 
Jordan:  "  The  Call  of  the  Twentieth  Century." 
Briggs:  "  Girls  and  Education." 


CHAPTER  XXI 
HOW  TO  TEACH  A  CHILD  TO  PRAY 

The  responsibility  of  the  person  who  gives  a  little  child 
his  first  religious  teaching  is  evident  to  him  as  soon  as 
he  begins  his  task.  Several  astonishing  facts  at  once 
become  clear.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  noticed  that  the 
child  believes  whatever  is  told  him  This  warns  the 
teacher  to  be  very  careful  about  the  truth.  In  the  next 
place,  the  child  is  of  very  limited  capacity.  A  great  deal 
that  we  teach,  particularly  whatever  the  child  has  no 
curiosity  about,  does  not  reach  him  at  all.  This  warns 
the  teacher  to  be  very  careful  about  both  his  matter  and 
his  manner. 

The  child  very  early  shows  an  interest  in  causes.  His 
crude  notions  of  the  way  things  are  brought  to  pass  sub- 
ject him  to  many  misconceptions  at  the  best,  and  he  finds 
it  easy  —  and  the  superstitions  and  chance  remarks  of 
others  encourage  the  tendency  — •  to  people  the  dark  with 
strange  and  often  terrible  powers,  to  attribute  personality 
to  many  things  in  nature,  and  to  imagine  extremely 
mechanical  means  by  which  the  universe  and  its  details 
are  administered.  It  seems  important  to  offer  the  child 
as  early  as  possible  an  idea  of  God  so  great  and  yet  so 
near,  so  lovable  and  yet  so  majestic,  that  it  shall  both 
steady  and  soothe  his  imagination  and  have  content 
enough  to  hold  his  growing  and  more  reasonable  faith. 
This  idea  most  of  us  believe  we  have  in  the  All-Father. 
It  has  its  familiar,  though  challenging,  interpretation  in 
present  parenthood,  and  it  is  great  enough  to  hold  all 
that  the  child  may  ever  learn  from  nature  or  experience 
of  providence,  wisdom  and  love. 

That  this  idea  may  come  to  the  child  with  early  awe, 
it  is  the  conviction  of  many  that  the  child  should  be  taught 

152 


HOW  TO  TEACH  A  CHILD  TO  PRAY         153 

reverent  attitudes  and  simple  phrases  of  prayer  even 
before  he  is  old  enough  to  be  told  a  great  deal  about  God. 
He  is  thus  physically  prepared  for  teaching  and  has 
already  the  appropriate  demonstration  with  which  to 
meet  the  gracious  truth.  Then,  as  the  child  matures 
and  shows  the  capacity  of  thoughtfulness  and  thankful- 
ness, at  the  mother's  suggestion  he  is  ready  for  his  first 
spontaneous  prayer. 

One  or  two  suggestions  as  to  detail  may  be  helpful. 
It  is  better  that  the  mother  should  kneel  with  the  child 
than  that  the  child  should  kneel  to  the  mother.  The 
latter  is  a  pretty  act,  often  commemorated  in  pictures, 
but  it  is  apt  to  make  the  child  literally  say  his  prayers  to 
his  mother,  and  even  to  think  they  cannot  be  said  when 
she  is  absent.  Kneeling  is  not  material,  and  is,  of  course, 
inadvisable  if  the  room  is  cold.  The  child  should  early 
learn  that  he  may  talk  with  his  Father  at  any  time  and 
in  any  attitude.  The  child's  prayers  should,  of  course, 
never  be  said  in  the  presence  of  company.  How  sacri- 
legious thus  to  tear  open  the  Holy  of  Holies  for  the 
whimsical  entertainment  of  guests!  The  morning  prayer 
is  even  more  important  than  that  at  evening,  as  it  is 
more  desirable  that  he  should  open  the  day  with  a  sense 
of  gratitude  and  a  fresh  committal  of  himself  to  the  Father 
than  that  he  should  give  the  sleepy  hours  to  prayer. 
This  leads  us  to  say  that,  in  our  present  safety,  there  is 
no  reason  why  the  child's  prayer  at  night  should  contain 
the  suggestion  either  of  peril  or  death.  The  old  "  Now 
I  lay  me,"  with  its  poignant  expectation  of  night  attacks 
by  enemies,  may  well  yield  to  some  sweeter  version,  like 
this: 

Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep. 

I  pray  Thee,  Lord,  me  safe  to  keep. 

And  when  the  morning  comes  again, 

Please  help  me  to  be  good.    Amen. 

The  words  of  the  child's  prayer,  whether  original  or 
suggested,  should  be  in  harmony  with  the  child's  experi- 
ence and  feelings.     If  we  who  are  older  always  had  to  say 


154       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

our  prayers  aloud,  they  would  no  doubt  often  be  phrased 
differently.  If  we  teach  the  child  prayers,  they  should 
not  only  be  simple  and  be  thoughtfully  explained*  but 
they  should  be  chosen  to  express  what  the  child  himself 
would  like  to  express.  And  we  should  very  early  en- 
courage the  child  to  say  directly  in  prayer  just  what  he 
feels.  He  naturally  wishes  to  be  guarded  from  his  fears, 
to  be  kept  happy  and  well,  to  be  made  loving  and  kind. 
Most  of  all  he  should  be  encouraged  to  be  grateful.  Let 
him  get  the  habit  of  recalling  and  enumerating  the  gifts 
of  the  day  that  have  made  him  happy  and  the  anticipa- 
tions of  tomorrow.  The  old  custom  of  enumerating 
kindred  and  friends  for  God  to  bless  is  good  so  far  as  it 
is  spontaneous.  He  need  not  be  forced  to  recite  his 
little  genealogical  table  every  night;  let  him  select  each 
evening  those  who  have  during  the  day  been  especially 
good  to  him.  We  whose  own  prayers  are  so  tamely  trite 
may  well  long  to  keep  those  of  our  little  ones  forever 
fresh  and  new. 

We  must  do  something  to  awaken  the  feelings  which 
we  would  like  to  have  the  child  express  in  prayer.  The 
mother  who  goes  about  saying  frequently,  and  sincerely, 
"  Bless  the  Lord  for  "  this  or  that,  is  helping  her  little 
child  to  relate  the  beautiful  day,  the  happy  times,  the 
lovely  gifts,,  directly  to  the  Father.  The  singing  mother 
helps  make  the  thankful  child.  Why  not  teach  the  kind 
of  prayers  that  a  child  can  sing  ? 

The  child  who  has  had  such  teaching  soon  accepts  it 
not  only  implicitly,  but  as  a  source  of  comfort  and 
strength.  He  is  not  so  afraid  in  hard  places ;  he  has  greater 
self-command;  he  can  be  trusted.  To  such  a  child  the 
mother  can  come,  in  times  of  anger  and  disobedience, 
with  the  suggestion  that  they  together  ask  the  Father  to 
show  them  how  to  conquer  the  present  difficulty.  The 
mother  will  avoid  cant,  and  be  tactful  in  doing  this. 
She  need  not  draw  the  child  to  his  knees  or  expect  to 
switch  him  from  a  paroxysm  of  physical  unrestraint  or 
temper  to  a  sudden  mood  of  devotion,  but  she  can  teach 
him  to  forefend  such  moments  by  earnest  petition  and 


HOW  TO  TEACH  A  CHILD  TO  PRAY         155 

sometimes  she  can  close  an  act  of  discipline  with  the 
suggestion  of  the  divine  resource.  It  is  as  wholesome  to 
the  mother  as  to  the  child  if  the  immanence  of  God  is  felt 
when  she  is  about  to  administer  rebuke  or  punishment. 
Unless  there  is  sufficiency  in  God  for  such  emergencies, 
what  is  the  use  of  talking  about  Him  as  "  a  present  help 
in  trouble  ' '  ? 

Some  children  who  are  naturally  shy  about  expressing 
themselves  enjoy  having  their  mothers  utter  prayers 
for  them.  The  practice  is  surely  a  beautiful  even  though 
difficult  one,  and  it  may  well  become  sometime  a  sacred 
memory  to  a  man  that  he  used  to  fall  asleep  amid  his 
mother's  prayers. 

We  spoke  of  the  ease  with  which  the  child  identifies 
God  with  nature.  It  has  been  natural  to  explain  this  as 
a  rehearsal  of  the  race  experience.  But  it  is  needless  that 
the  child  should  pass  through  the  terrors  that  accompanied 
nature  worship;  on  the  other  hand,  while  there  will  be 
much  in  the  universe  that  is  dark  and  mysterious,  which 
the  child  cannot  explain,  anything  that  fosters  the  sense 
of  being  at  home  in  the  universe,  that  emphasizes  its 
kind  and  friendly  powers,  that  teaches  the  sense  of  the 
oneness  of  it,  is  religious  teaching.  As  the  mother  reveals 
the  love  of  God  to  the  child  by  her  own  anxiety  to  satisfy 
his  physical  needs,  as  the  sense  of  his  own  perpetual 
comfort  makes  him  feel  that  God  is  a  person  in  his  im- 
mediate world,  as  he  relates  even  his  love  of  fairies,  angels 
and  Santa  Claus  to  the  Creative  Power,  he  is  increasing 
the  content  of  his  faith;  and  there  is  nothing  in  all  this 
which  he  may  not  gently  outgrow,  as  his  reason  subdues 
his  imagination,  without  outgrowing  the  fundamental 
faith  itself. 

We  must  speak  of  Jesus  to  a  child  as  our  Best  Brother. 
It  is  unfortunate,  since  it  is  incomprehensible,  to  teach 
a  little  child  about  Him  in  any  other  terms.  The  right 
relation  to  Him  is  loyalty,  and  it  is  quite  legitimate  and 
even  helpful  to  extend  the  thought,  "  Father  and  mother 
would  not  like  to  have  you  do  this,"  to  "  Jesus  would  not 
like  to  have  you,  either." 


156       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

The  Religion  of  Duty 

Even  the  child's  religion  may  have  direct  relation  to 
conduct.  We  have  said  before  that  the  virtue  of  the  child 
is  Obedience.  That  this  is  a  religious  virtue  may  be  made 
real  to  him  in  many  ways.  He  may  be  taught  that  it 
is  the  virtue  of  the  universe.  Let  him  see  the  stately 
march  of  the  stars  at  night,  and  be  told  of  their  promptness 
to  their  orbits.  Let  him  learn  to  time  the  sun  and  the 
moon  on  their  journeys.  Tell  him  little  stories  about  the 
obedience  of  the  rabbits  and  the  birdlings  and  the  other 
animals  to  their  mothers,  and  show  him  how  these  small 
mothers  could  never  help  their  little  ones  to  be  safe  and 
comfortable  unless  they  should  always,  always  obey. 
Yet  somehow,  too,  we  must  convince  our  children  from  the 
start  that  what  they  obey  is  not  us,  their  parents,  but 
Something  through  and  beyond  us,  to  which  we  too  strive 
always  to  be  obedient.  Nothing  helps  a  child  more  in 
his  daily  struggles  toward  goodness  than  the  conviction 
that  his  father  and  mother  too  have  the  same  struggle, 
must  obey  the  same  Law  and  are  his  fellow-soldiers  in 
the  endeavor.  This  thought  takes  out  of  our  admoni- 
tions the  chilling  "  you  "  and  puts  in  the  enheartening 
"  we."  It  expresses  that  perpetual  incarnation  that  is 
going  on,  of  the  higher  with  the  lower  person,  and  of 
God  in  both. 

Because  the  child  is  so  credulous  and  imitative  he  needs 
the  best  examples  if  he  is  to  do  duty  nobly  as  well  as 
religiously.  "  The  best  way  for  a  child  to  learn  to  fear 
God,"  said  the  gentle  .and  sensible  Pestalozzi,  "is  to 
see  and  know  a  real  Christian."  The  reason  why  some 
churches  withhold  the  rite  of  infant  baptism  from  unbe- 
lieving parents  is  because  they  see  no  possibility  of  a 
real  "  christening  "  if  the  child's  sponsors  are  not  godly 
persons. 

Reverence  in  Church 

How  essential  is  it  that  the  child's  earliest  relations  to 
the  institution  that  stands  for  God  in  the  community 
should  be  such  as  to  prepare  him  for  lifelong  attachment 


HOW  TO  TEACH  A   CHILD  TO   PRAY  157 

and  loyalty  to  it!  We  agree  that  the  church  is  such  an 
institution,  yet  we  sometimes  lead  children  to  think  of 
it  as  something  else:  an  organism  that  hears  sermons 
or  that  conducts  revivals  or  that  occasionally  has  a 
"  Children's  Day."  It  seems  important  that  even  the 
church  building  should  represent  to  the  child  a  higher 
thought  than  these.  On  his  early  walks  let  him  pass  its 
doors  and  be  told,  simply  and  perhaps  in  a  story  way, 
why  it  looks  different  from  any  other  building  in  the 
town,  what  it  has  meant  in  lives  of  apostles  and  martyrs 
to  make  it  possible,  how  people  are  comforted  who  enter 
its  doors.  Take  the  child  into  some  church  building,  a 
cathedral  if  possible,  when  there  is  no  service  going  on 
an,d  let  him  kneel  there  with  you  as  he  enters  and  then 
walk  softly  about  while  you  show  him  the  windows  and 
the  tablets  and  the  font  and  the  altar.  Postpone  the 
habit  of  church-going  until  the  child  is  old  enough  to 
regard  it  as  a  privilege  and  to  appreciate  something  of 
what  you  tell  him  about  the  various  parts  of  the  service. 
Teach  him  a  little  prayer  to  say  as  he  devoutly  enters  and 
departs.  Teach  him  the  church  hymns  so  that  he  will 
know  them  when  he  goes  to  church.  Mitigate  the  sermon 
for  him,  either  by  helping  to  establish  a  children's  service 
or  nursery  or  by  some  device  that  he  may  use  quietly 
in  his  seat. 

The  significance,  in  the  writer's  judgment,  of  the  marked 
tendency  toward  ritual  in  the  non-liturgical  churches  and 
the  equally  marked  tendency  toward  simplicity  and 
freedom  in  some  liturgical  churches  is  the  growing 
recognition  of  the  need  of  making  the  service  of  God's 
house  more  childlike  and  more  helpful  to  those  who  some 
day  must  be  depended  upon  to  maintain  the  courts  of  the 
house  of  our  God. 

Reading  References 

Hodges:  "  The  Training  of  Children  in  Religion  "  is  full  of  reverence 
and  of  a  sympathetic  knowledge  of  childhood.  It  contains  a  treasury  of 
prayers,  suggestions  for  reading  to  children  out  of  the  Bible  and  a  dis- 
cussion of  what  is  meant  by  "  a  good  child."  Coe:  "  Education  in  Religion 
and  Morals  "  traces  the  religious  development  of  the  child  and  has  a  chapter 
on  The  Family. 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  CHILD 

The  Bible  is  the  greatest  story-book  in  the  world.  The 
young  parent  whose  library,  probably,  is  not  at  first 
well  supplied  with  children's  books,  turns  almost  in- 
stinctively, when  his  little  child  insists,  "  Tell  me  a  story," 
to  the  book  which  he  himself  remembers  was  the  favorite 
story-book  of  his  own  earliest  childhood.  The  parent 
who  thinks  that,  because  of  certain  difficulties,  the  Bible 
should  be  withheld  from  young  children,  is  often  surprised 
to  learn  that,  when  it  is  laid  in  the  hands  of  boys  and  girls 
who  are  old  enough  to  read,  they  peruse  it  with  almost 
passionate  eagerness.  Whatever  else  it  is,  it  is  evidently 
a  splendid  story-book.  When  we  ask  ourselves,  "What 
parts  of  the  Bible  do  we  most  truly  know?"  we  have  to 
acknowledge  that,  whether  or  not  they  are  those  which 
are  of  the  loftiest  morality,  they  are  at  least  those  which 
embody  the  keenest  story -interest.  In  general,  we  are 
much  more  familiar  with  the  Pentateuch  than  with  the 
Epistles,  with  the  Old  Testament  than  with  the  New 
(except  the  Gospels),  simply  because,  during  childhood, 
those  parts,  through  stories,  were  first  given  to  us. 

The  simplicity  of  the  stories  of  the  Bible  helps  account 
for  their  power  with  children.  Professor  Jebb  explains 
the  fact  that  Homer  is  a  universal  book  by  stating  that 
Homer  possesses  two  great  qualities, — he  aims  at  the  lucid 
expression  of  primary  motives  and  he  refrains  from 
multiplying  individual  traits,  which  would  interfere  with 
their  effect.  These  two  qualities  are  found  in  the  Bible 
as  well  as  in  Homer.  Biblical  stories  take  a  few  essential 
traits  of  human  nature  and  refrain  from  multiplying  traits 
which  might  interfere  with  the  great  effect.  This  sim- 
plicity and  directness  bring  Bible  stories  within  the  com- 
prehension of  children. 

158 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   CHILD  159 

The  faithfulness  and  candor  of  the  Bible  no  doubt 
account  for  its  power  over  children.  Children  love  truth 
and  are  naturally  truth  tellers.  Our  tendency  in  story- 
telling is  always  to  eliminate  the  disagreeable  and  leave 
out  all  that  is  bloodthirsty  and  cruel  and  talk  about  only 
the  perfect  characters.  This  is  not  only  untrue  to  life 
but  it  is  a  bloodless  and  ineffective  way  of  story-telling. 
The  Bible  is  a  book  of  truth.  It  is  like  a  roofless  city  — 
like  Pompeii,  down  into  whose  streets  and  homes  we 
are  permitted  to  look  and  see  the  inhabitants  feeling, 
living,  loving,  conquering,  playing,  sinning  and  repenting. 
The  moral  strength  of  the  Bible  is  not  only  that  it  tells  us 
that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death  but  it  shows  us  human 
persons  earning  those  wages. 

The  richness  of  material  in  the  Bible  makes  it  an  almost 
inexhaustible  story-book.  It  is  a  massive  collection. 
In  its  many  pages  some  children  are  represented.  Per- 
sons of  every  class  are  described,  from  the  working  folk 
with  whom  children  sympathize  to  princes  and  kings  of 
whom  children  love  to  hear.  Though  its  stories  are 
somewhat  lacking  in  descriptions  of  nature,  they  are  full 
of  varied  animal  life.  The  various  types  of  stories  inter- 
esting to  children  are  all  included  as  well  as  parables  and 
biographies.  These  stories  maintain  interest  because 
they  deal  with  things  children  wish  to  know.  These  are 
some  of  the  subjects  of  Bible  stories:  The  origin  of  the 
world  and  of  human  beings;  how  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren are  provided  for;  what  are  the  varied  interests  and 
ambitions  about  which  men  have  been  busy;  what  are 
our  relations  to  God,  to  the  world  and  to  men.  These 
are  questions  that  children  ask.  Unconsciously  to  the 
child,  yet  none  the  less  powerfully,  is  he  affected  by  those 
simple  contrasts  of  motive,  particularly  moral  contrasts, 
which  characterize  so  many  of  the  Bible  stories. 

A  deeper  reason  is  that  almost  every  story  in  the  Bible 
has  a  religious  purpose.  "  No  other  book  finds  me  as  the 
Bible  does,"  said  Coleridge.  The  reason  the  Bible  finds 
the  child  is  because  the  child  is  by  nature  religious,  and 
because  Bible  stories,  as  Louise  Seymour  Houghton  says, 


160       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

"  give  a  religious  meaning  to  all  the  experiences  of  his 
early  life." 

An  important  value  of  the  Bible  as  a  story-book  is 
that  even  the  order  of  the  early  books,  as  printed  in  our 
English  version,  is  appropriate  to  the  stages  of  the  child's 
development.  It  has  been  pointed  out  by  others  that 
the  Bible  represents  also  a  very  significant  genetic  order. 
The  stories  which  are  a  spiritual  history7  of  the  race  are 
also  stories  of  the  inner  development  of  every  individual. 
The  book  begins  with  the  story  of  the  Creation,  which 
appeals  strongly  to  the  mind  of  the  child.  Next  comes 
a  period  of  pastoral  life,  affecting  the  child's  out-of-door 
interests.  Then  is  the  heroic  stage,  the  story  of  the  God 
of  battles,  a  narrative  full  of  wonderful  tales  of  which 
the  child  never  tires. 

Parents  differ  as  to  when  the  Bible  should  first  be 
presented  to  children.  Those  who  take  the  ground  that 
it  should  be  withheld  until  "  the  child  is  old  enough  to 
decide  things  for  himself, ' '  are  of  course  assuming  a  position 
which  they  would  never  think  of  taking  in  regard  to  any 
other  subject.  There  may  be,  however,  some  rationality 
about  the  belief  of  others  who  feel  that  the  Bible  will 
too  soon  become  trite  if  it  is  handled  too  freely  and  too 
often.  The  blase  and  unexpectant  attitude  of  the  average 
Sunday  school  pupil  is  a  testimony  in  support  of  this  posi- 
tion. On  the  other  hand,  it  would  seem  better,  if  the 
Bible  is  really  to  be  made  a  story-book,  that  the  child 
should  possess  it  early  and  heartily,  even  if  he  seems  to 
tire  of  it  later  on,  rather  than  that  he  should  be  given  a 
chance  to  miss  its  acquisition  through  delay  or  neglect. 
The  modern  Sunday  school  is  revealing  to  us  such  fresh 
methods  of  presenting  the  Bible  from  grade  to  grade 
that  this  particular  peril  is  growing  less. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  believe  that  the  Bible  should 
be  presented  to  children  as  early  as  they  are  capable  of 
understanding  and  enjoying  its  stories.  They  should,  of 
course,  receive  it  at  first  entirely  as  a  story-book,  and  then 
it  should  be  told  to  them  rather  than  read  to  them.  In- 
competent as  the  parent  may  feef  as  a  story-teller,  the 


THE   BIBLE  AND  THE   CHILD  161 

crudest  rendering,  so  long  as  it  is  enthusiastic  and  thought- 
ful, is  better  than  the  reading  of  that  which  cannot  pos- 
sibly be  understood  fully.  The  necessity  of  condensation 
and  adaptation  also  is  so  acute,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
early  Hebrew  leaders,  that  the  verbal  method  is  rather 
to  be  recommended. 

A  few  suggestions  may  be  helpful  in  regard  to  methods 
of  Bible  story-telling. 

Some  people  seem  to  think  it  is  necessary  to  assume  a 
peculiarly  sanctimonious  manner  when  they  tell  a  Bible 
story.  Too  often,  as  Miss  Cowles  tells  us,  "  Bible  stories 
are  told  in  a  truly  awful  manner,  and  children,  without 
knowing  why,  learn  to  dread  them.  They  oftentimes 
seem  to  them  something  unreal,  something  which  they 
cannot  understand,  something  which  they  fear.  This 
is  the  last  result  the  story-teller  has  desired  but  it  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  sanctimonious  substitutes  for  love, 
joy  and  gentleness.  Rightly  told,  Bible  stories  arouse 
in  the  child  keen  interest  and  deep  pleasure."  It  may  be 
that  we  w^ould  be  more  likely  to  avoid  this  danger  if  we 
were  to  begin  with  the  more  simple  and  agreeable  narra- 
tives, such  as  the  beautiful  story  of  Joseph,  filled  with 
wonder,  with  love,  with  forgiveness  and  moral  stead- 
fastness, the  wonderful  story  of  the 'Creation,  the  Patriarch 
stories,  hero  stories  of  the  Book  of  Judges,  the  story  of 
David  up  to  his  coronation  and  the  pastoral  story  of  Ruth. 

To  make  the  characters  realistic  and  the  stories  more 
interesting  a  certain  amount  of  imaginativeness  is  allow- 
able. Why,  for  instance,  should  not  the  man  who  fell 
among  thieves  on  the  Jericho  road  have  had  a  wife  and 
children?  Why  should  not  Zaccheus  be  furnished  with 
neighbors,  who  criticized  him?  Why  should  not  the  story 
of  the  supper  by  the  lake  be  told  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  boy  who  had  the  five  loaves  and  the  two  fishes? 
Details  added  to  the  life  of  Jesus,  save  as  they  are  implicit 
in  the  narrative,  seem  unnecessary  and  really  unsuccessful. 

It  is  often  helpful  to  add  to  the  telling  of  a  story  details 
as  to  the  probable  thoughts  of  the  characters  in  connection 
with  the  incidents  which  are  told.    For  instance,  the 


162       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

tribulations  of  David  in  his  struggle  toward  the  throne 
would  suggest  at  every  point  intimate  thoughts  that 
may  easily  be  pictured  which  the  child  will  enjoy  sharing. 
In  the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan  it  may  be  helpful, 
after  asking  the  little  folks  how  many  children  they  think 
the  man  who  was  robbed  had  in  his  home,  to  confer  with 
them  as  to  the  anxieties  which  these  youngsters  felt 
when  their  father  went  down  the  dangerous  Jericho  road, 
the  thoughts  in  the  mind  of  the  selfish  priest  and  the  Levite 
and  the  dialogue  which  passed  between  the  man  who  was 
robbed  and  his  family  after  he  at  length  returned  safely 
to  them.  Subtraction,  as  we  have  implied,  is  useful 
in  telling  Bible  stories.  We  may  agree  with  Felix 
Adler  "  that  sour  milk  is  no  proper  food  for  children, 
nor  do  those  stories  afford  proper  moral  food  in  which, 
so  to  speak,  the  milk  of  human  kindness  has  turned 
sour."  The  attempted  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  the  story  of 
Jael,  the  killing  of  Agag,  are  instances  which  occur  to 
mind.  In  telling  the  story  of  Hagar,  it  is  best  to  exclude 
all  that  is  repellant,  touching  only  the  picture  of  a  mother's 
love.  The  story  of  Moses  the  deliverer  in  great  part  is 
unfit  for  children  under  nine  or  ten,  not  for  moral  reasons, 
but  because  it  includes  motives  too  complex  and  mature 
to  be  within  their  comprehension.  The  childhood  of 
Moses,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  drama  with  which  children 
have  been  entranced.  It  sometimes  adds  force  to  the 
Bible  to  change  the  order  in  which  it  is  related  in  the 
Scriptures.  This  has  already  been  done  to  certain  in- 
cidents, since  certain  instances  in  the  Old  Testament  are 
told  in  different  order  when  we  find  them  in  another 
place.  Curios,  stereographs,  reproductions  of  sacred 
art  are  all  helpful  devices  for  making  Bible  lands  and 
people  real. 

Most  parents,  when  their  children  begin  to  read,  place 
the  entire  English  version  in  their  hands.  The  very 
mechanical  beauty  of  the  book,  its  flexible  leather  binding, 
its  red  and  gold  edges,  and,  in  many  versions,  its  attrac- 
tive pictures,  cause  it  to  become  the  brightest  cornerstone 
of   the   future   library.     Many   parents,   however,   make 


THE   BIBLE  AND   THE   CHILD  163 

the  mistake  of  selecting  for  their  children  editions  of  the 
Scriptures  printed  in  small  type.  It  must  be  acknowl- 
edged, too,  that  it  is  somewhat  difficult  for  the  child, 
unaided,  to  find  his  way  through  so  great  a  country  in 
which  there  are  no  guide  posts.  We  would  scarcely  have 
the  temerity,  in  the  case  of  any  other  volume  so  complex, 
to  anticipate  very  great  success.  The  danger  that  the 
child  will  come  across  passages  which  are  unsuitable  for 
his  reading  need  not  be  exaggerated,  since  the  possibility 
is  that  the  child  will  not  understand  their  meaning  and 
therefore  will  probably  skip  them.  But  by  early  ado- 
lescence the  danger  is  great.  On  the  whole,  it  is  desirable 
to  place  first  in  the  hands  of  the  young  child  one  of  the 
many  helpful  arrangements  especially  made  for  children, 
printed  in  large,  clear  type,  with  modern  paragraph 
divisions  and  selected,  arranged  and  explained  so  as  to 
make  it  intelligible  and  enjoyable.  There  is  nothing 
sacred  about  a  limp-backed  Bible  per  se.  If  it  is  the 
greatest  book  in  the  world,  we  should  give  children  the 
most  benefit  by  an  abundant  entrance  into  it. 

Space  does  not  permit  discussion  of  the  great  systems 
of  Bible  study  in  church  schools.  What  has  already 
been  said  has  intimated  to  the  reader  that  some  parts 
of  the  Bible  are  more  suitable  for  children  than  others. 
Our  most  thoughtful  lesson  writers  are  now  busy  in  the 
following  important  tasks:  selection  of  Biblical  material 
appropriate  to  each  stage  of  development;  methods  of 
presentation  suitable  to  each  stage  as  discovered  from 
our  best  pedagogical  -science;  educating  the  teacher  in 
applying  these  methods  to  the  children;  textbooks  and 
illustrated  material  which  shall  call  forth  the  co-operation 
of  the  child;  the  most  practical  correlation  between  what 
the  child  learns  in  Sunday  school  and  natural,  unselfish 
service  in  the  home,  the  school  playground  and  the  com- 
munity. 

The  Right  Attitude  Toward  the  Bible 

The  attitude  toward  the  Bible  that  we  hold  when 
teaching  it  to  children  is  likely  to  be  the  one  we  hold  for 


164       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

ourselves.  But  we  must  realize  that  the  adult  attitude 
is  not  that  of  the  child. 

The  adult  is  likely  to  think  of  the  Bible  in  terms  of 
theology.  It  has  formed  so  strongly  a  determining  factor 
in  the  ripening  of  his  own  philosophical  determinations 
about  religion  that  he  is  tempted  to  try  to  communicate 
these  terms  to  the  child.  But  to  the  child  the  Bible  is, 
as  we  have  said,  a  story-book  and  not  a  book  of  theology, 
and  its  relations  are  with  life  more  than  with  thought. 
It  is  our  duty  to  give  the  child  the  Bible  in  his  own  terms, 
as  a  story-book  that  interprets  life. 

A  special  error  of  adults  is  to  endeavor  to  communicate 
to  the  child  by  means  of  the  Bible  their  own  special  view 
of  the  supernatural.  This  often  takes  the  form  of  em- 
phasizing the  miraculous.  But  to  a  small  child  everything 
is  a  wonder  and  a  miracle.  He  must  pass  through  his 
stage  of  seeing  the  extraordinary  and  even  the  grotesque 
in  everything,  and  he  is  not  ready  yet  for  any  definite  and 
permanent  view  of  the  matter.  We  must  protect  him 
from  being  frightened  by  what  he  hears  or  reads  and  we 
must  see  that  he  does  not  get  any  idea  of  God  that  will 
alienate  him  from  his  Father.  We  may  safely  leave  until 
later  the  shaping  of  his  theories  upon  this  topic. 

The  writer  frankly  believes  that  the  modern  methods 
of  Bible  study  have  restored  to  us  the  real  Bible,  and  that 
they  are  both  an  aid  to  faith  and  to  reality  in  religion. 
Believing  thus,  it  has  been  his  own  method,  justified  by 
good  results,  to  take  for  granted  with  children  whatever 
scholarship  has  brought  to  light  and- to  teach  them  nothing 
that  they  would  need  to  unlearn  later.  It  has  been  a 
peculiar  satisfaction  to  note  that  a  considerable  number 
of  young  persons  have,  as  the  result,  been  prepared  to 
meet  the  scientific  methods  and  approaches  of  college 
without  disturbance  to  their  faith.  Let  a  child's  training 
be  reasonable  as  far  as  it  goes,  give  him  the  Bible  as  a 
book  of  life,  and  then  let  him  have  room  to  grow. 

Reading  References 
Mrs.  Houghton's  "  Telling  Bible  Stories,"  referred  to  in  Chapter  XIX, 
is  not  only  helpful  for  the  purpose  which  its  title  indicates,  but  it  is  sug- 


THE  BIBLE  AND   THE   CHILD  165 

gestive  as  to  the  best  way  to  bring  children  into  contact  with  our  modern 
knowledge  of  the  Bible.  The  volume  of  the  Religious  Education  Asso- 
ciation reports  entitled  "  The  Bible  in  Practical  Life,"  has,  on  pp.  55-85, 
180-209,  instructive  articles  on  the  use  of  the  Bible  with  children  and  in 
modern  religious  education.  In  Stephen  Paget's  "  The  New  Parent's 
Assistant  "  is  an  exceedingly  sensible  chapter  entitled  "  Defenders  of  the 
Faith."  Chapter  IV  of  G.  Stanley  Hall's  "  Educational  Problems  " 
deals  with  the  matter  with  his  usual  freshness  and  boldness,  but  it  should 
be  read  with  a  good  measure  of  personal  discrimination. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
SUNDAY 

The  problem  of  Sunday  in  the  home  depends  largely 
upon  a  clear  statement  of  what  kind  of  Sunday  the  home 
desires  to  observe.  There  is  considerable  need  of  clear 
thinking  upon  this  subject.  We  have  before  us,  roughly 
speaking,  four  kinds  of  Sundays: 

The  Old  Testament  Sabbath. 

The  Sabbath  of  Jesus. 

The  Puritan  Sunday. 

The  so-called  "  Continental  "  Sunday. 

A  great  many  persons  who  believe  in  the  Puritan  Sunday 
and  who  suppose  it  to  be  identical  with  the  first  two  would 
be  enlightened  by  a  little  careful  Bible  study.  The  reader 
may  better  make  this  study  for  himself,  but  a  fair  state- 
ment of  its  results  may  be  ventured  to  start  us  on  our 
way.  The  Sabbath  of  the  Old  Testament  had  two  view- 
points. As  seen  in  the  so-called  prophetic  sources  it  was 
a  day  of  joy,  recreation  and  compensation.  From  the 
priestly  standpoint,  its  ceremonial  value  was  more  dis- 
tinctly emphasized.  The  priests  saw  it  as  a  day  that  was 
of  value  to  God,  a  kind  of  ceremonial  offering  for  his 
satisfaction.  The  prophets  saw  it  rather  as  a  day  of 
value  to  man,  and  believed  that  God's  satisfaction  in  it, 
as  in  all  things  human,  was  in  its  value  to  men.  From 
neither  viewpoint  was  its  observance  very  similar  to  any 
vSunday  we  know  at  present.  It  was  not  a  day  of  church- 
going,  save  as  men  might  chance  to  be  near  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem.  The  synagogue  services,  which  had  sprung 
up  generally  since  the  exile,  were  somewhat  analogous 
to  our  Sunday  schools.  It  was  in  all  times  among  the 
Jews  a  day  of  rest  from  work  and  of  feasting  and  joy  at 
home.  In  the  time  of  Jesus  the  priestly  view  of  the 
Sabbath  had  become  dominant.     The  day,  without  losing 

1GG 


SUNDAY  167 

its  general  character  as  one  of  rest  and  feasting,  had  been 
clogged  by  many  restrictions  of  a  formal  kind,  which 
made  it  uncomfortable. 

Jesus  distinctly  stood  for  the  revival  of  the  prophetic 
idea  of  the  Sabbath.  "  The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man." 
He  broke  deliberately  from  the  Pharisaic  restrictions  and 
walked,  ate  and  acted  in  general  during  the  day  with  com- 
plete freedom,  under  the  sanction  of  the  thought  of  making 
the  day  worth  while  to  Himself  and  His  followers.  He  went 
customarily  to  the  synagogue,  but  the  synagogue,  though 
largely  in  the  hands  of  scribes  of  the  priestly  school, 
was  the  forum  of  prophets  and  as  such  He  regarded  it. 

The  Puritan  Sunday  was  one  of  the  many  needed  pro- 
tests of  Puritanism.  It  was  a  revolt  against  formal  church 
services,  and  the  inconsistent  riotings  that  followed  them. 
It  .brought  a  simpler  worship  and  a  more  austere  home 
observance.  It  went  to  the  extreme  of  establishing  the 
ceremonial  of  restraint  and  gloom  in  place  of  the  cere- 
monial of  ritualism.  It  even  made  its  own  ceremonials 
a  virtue,  and  in  so  far  resembled  in  spirit  the  Sabbath  of 
the  Pharisees. 

The  "  Continental  "  Sunday  is  the  individualistic  use 
of  the  day  wTithin  no  limits  save  those  of  the  civil  laws. 
It  seeks  the  joy  of  the  prophets'  day,  but  not  always  with 
the  prophets'  questioning  as  to  what  is  of  highest  worth. 
It  resembles  to  a  degree  the  Sunday  of  the  Cavaliers, 
but  is,  in  Germany  at  least,  a  family  day. 

This  little  study  may  help  clear  our  minds.  The 
Puritan  Sunday,  wrhich  we  may  be  inclined  through 
tradition  to  think  of  as  the  only  religious  Sunday,  was 
not  such,  and  had  its  manifest  limitations.  It  was  for 
one  thing  an  awful  day  for  children.  If  to  Jesus  every 
day  was  a  religious  day,  wre  cannot  certainly  except  the 
Sabbath.  It  was  to  him,  as  wTas  every  day,  it  is  true,  a 
day  in  which  joy,  recreation  and  compensation  were  to 
be  pursued  in  the  religious  spirit.  It  was  more  than 
every  other  day,  for  it  was,  as  an  ancient  phrase  had  it, 
"  the  day  of  the  lifting  off  of  burdens."  Because  it  was 
not  a  day  for  work,  it  was  a  day  of  peculiar  opportunity. 


168       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

This  word  would  seem  to  be  the  keynote  of  the  home 
Sunday  —  opportunity;  not  repression,   but   privilege. 

And  when  we  say  opportunity  we  like  to  add  Christian 
opportunity.  For  we  must  remember  that  in  our  Sun- 
day we  not  only  may  have  Jesus'  ideal,  but  we  have  his 
memorial.  The  beautiful  name  that  has  come  down  to 
us  since  the  life  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  is  "  the  Lord's 
day."  To  him  to  whom  Jesus  means  Life  the  day  is  the 
peculiar  opportunity  to  remember  and  live  in  the  spirit 
of  Jesus. 

But  someone  at  once  objects:  "  Under  this  definition 
do  we  not  at  once  open  the  door  to  every  abuse  of  the  day  ? 
Will  not  the  child  say,  '  If  this  is  the  day  of  opportunity, 
for  joy,  why,  for  example,  do  we  not  take  our  car  and  spend 
the  day  in  a  jolly  ride  into  the  country?'  "  The  writer 
wishes  to  be  frank ;  he  could  not  in  frankness  exclude  this 
as  a  way  of  spending  Sunday  which  may  be  and  often  has 
been  justified  as  appropriate.  But  a  broader  considera- 
tion would  limit,  it  would  seem,  even  this  method  of 
spending  every  Sunday  of  the  year.  Let  us  remember 
some  of  the  factors  of  the  prophets',  of  Jesus',  Sabbath. 

1.  It  was  a  day  at  home,  and  for  the  home. 

2.  It  was  a  day  of  joy  in  the  best  things. 

3.  It  was  a  day  for  everybody  to  be  at  home  and  have 
the  best  things.  The  automobile  Sunday  does  not  well 
meet  all  these  tests.  Some  Sundays  at  least,  most 
Sundays  one  would  think,  should  be  enjoyed  at  home. 
The  family  may  be  kept  together  in  a  car,  but  the  house 
itself  with  its  associations  is  a  part  of  the  family,  and  we 
ought  to  enjoy  our  houses  and  firesides  more,  not  less, 
than  we  do.  The  automobile  Sunday  may  bring  us  what 
is  best  at  certain  times,  say  for  certain  hours,  but  the  joy 
of  rapid  motion  among  pleasant  scenes,  though  whole- 
some and  restful,  is  not  the  total  of  the  best  that  is  avail- 
able to  any  family.  We  may  easily  lose  God  amongst 
his  works;  we  find  in  books,  pictures,  friends,  higher 
joys  than  in  a  ride  in  a  machine.  Then  most  excursions 
on  Sunday  tend  to  defeat  the  third  object  mentioned 
above;  they  make  somewhat  less  possible  for  everybody 


SUNDAY  169 

a  quiet  Sunday  without  work  or  care.  The  automobile 
is  particularly  destructive  of  the  quiet  and  rest  of  human 
life  at  any  time.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  hard  to 
prove  that  a  car  is  any  less  sacred  than  a  man's  own  legs 
or  that  the  day  is  spoiled  by  going  fifty  miles  from  home 
rather  than  five. 

This  frank  discussion  of  a  particular  point  may  help 
us  get  back  to  general  principles. 

Sunday  is  a  day  of  opportunity  for  rest,  particularly 
for  rest  in  change.  This  is,  after  all,  the  best  kind  of  rest. 
To  most  the  night  is  sufficient  for  rest  in  sleep,  though  to 
some  overstrained  lives,  additional  sleep  on  Sunday  is 
the  changeful  rest  that  seems  to  be  demanded.  But  in 
general  and  especially  for  children,  the  best  rest  is  not 
sleep  and  the  best  Sunday  is  not  a  sleepy  one.  Many 
simple  changes  make  Sunday  a  festival  to  children  and 
create  happy  and  lifelong  memories.  To  their  intense 
physical  beings  change  in  the  food  and  in  the  table  fur- 
nishings are  joyously  symbolic.  For  change  in  play 
(since  in  the  Old  Testament  work  upon  the  Sabbath  is 
disallowed,  but  not  play,  so  that  it  cannot  be  wrong  to 
play  on  Sunday,  as  some  aver)  certain  playthings  may 
well  be  reserved  and  certain  plays,  especially  with  father, 
whose  only  day  of  play  it  usually  is.  Indeed,  both  out 
of  fairness  and  because  he  needs  it,  Sunday  may  be  defined 
as  a  weekly  Father's  Day.  Since  Sunday  is  a  family 
day  and  should  be  a  day  of  freedom  to  all,  it  is  only  fair 
that  it  should  be  easier  to  the  housewife  and  the  servants. 
Hence  the  appropriateness  and  the  pride  of  making  some 
of  the  children,  who  are  old  enough,  responsible  for 
certain  meals  and  minor  tasks  on  Sunday.  Best  clothes, 
fresh  flowers,  new  phonograph  records  or  piano  solos, 
everything  that  is  "  new  "  and  "  best,"  should  appear  on 
Sunday.  One  reason  why  church-going  is  wholesome  is 
because  it  is  an  antidote  to  the  personal  slovenliness  that 
usually  belongs  to  those  who  are  "  porch  Christians." 

Public  worship,  one  of  man's  oldest  institutions,  surely 
demands  no  defence.  Praise  and  prayer  in  unison  have, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  many  races  and   times, 


170       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

proven  useful,  and  they  have  always  been  associated  with 
a  periodical  rest  day.  Whether  one  finds  peace  in  the 
visitations  that  come  into  the  Quakers'  silence  or  in  the 
loud  acclaim  of  sonorous  liturgies,  some  appropriate 
opportunity  is  open  to  nearly  all.  We  cannot  guarantee 
that  our  children  will  always  go  to  church  after  they  are 
grown  up,  but  it  would  seem  to  be  at  the  least  a  deprivation 
that  they  should  never  have  been  accustomed  to  the 
attentiveness,  the  expectancy  and  the  reward  of  hours 
of  united  worship. 

To  think  of  noble  things  together  is  surely  a  restful 
change  on  Sunday,  and  for  this  purpose  Sunday  schools 
came  into  being  and  are  maintained.  Let  us  grant  that 
the  Sunday  school  is  not  what  it  ought  to  be  pedagogically 
and  even  that  it  can  never  become,  with  its  meagre 
hour  and  its  volunteer  leadership,  a  completely  satisfac- 
tory school  of  religion,  yet  it  can  be  and  usually  is  at 
least  what  we  have  said  —  an  opportunity  to  think  of 
noble  things  together.  The  chief  value  of  the  Sunday 
school  is  that  it  is  a  wholesome  social  companionship 
under  unselfish  leadership.  Children  do  at  least  learn 
to  think  and  feel  in  common,  where  good  men  and  women 
are.  It  also  supplements  and  confirms  the  home  teaching 
and  stands  as  a  doorway  into  the  church.  Other  ideals 
the  modern  Sunday  school  strives  for,  but  we  speak  now 
of  the  average  school,  and  do  not  claim  too  much.  These 
are  worth  while.  The  Sunday  school  is  worth  while 
on  Sunday.     Its  worth- whileness  is  increasing. 

Social  fellowship  and  hospitality  are  surely  opportunities 
for  Sunday.  Among  the  Hebrews  the  Sabbath  was,  and 
is  still,  called  "  the  Day  of  Lights,"  and  the  candlestick 
that  was  lighted  by  the  house-mother  on  Sabbath  eve 
was  the  symbol  of  the  fellowship  between  God  and  men 
and  between  men  and  men.  Unless  the  hospitality  be 
earnestly  simple  it  may  encroach  upon  the  real  rest  of 
the  day.  Yet  such  hospitality  is  possible  and  most  de- 
sirable. If  a  boy  or  girl  may  freely  bring  his  chum  to  his 
own  room  and  carry  thither  at  least  a  cafeteria  lunch, 
how  wholesome  and  pleasant  is  the  custom!     If  a  Sunday 


SUNDAY  171 

school  class  may  go  into  the  fields  with  their  teacher,  how 
excellent  the  opportunity  for  acquaintance!  If  the 
parents  can  bring  wise  men  to  the  home  on  that  day,  how 
educative  for  the  children!  If  the  church  can  in  the 
summer  have  a  camp  for  its  working  boys  and  girls,  how 
sensible  a  way  of  imitating  Him  who  spread  a  feast  for 
the  weary  and  heavy  laden  beside  the  lake!  And  let 
us  not  forget  too  that,  from  early  days,  Sunday  has  been 
the  clay  set  apart  for  courtship.  Whatever  else  a  Chris- 
tian Endeavor  society  is,  not  the  least  of  its  functions  is 
to  bring  young  folks  pleasantly  together,  usually  on  Sun- 
day and  under  the  shelter  of  the  church.  The  home 
should,  when  those  days  come,  plan  for  the  welcomed 
meeting  under  its  roof  of  those  who  shall  some  day  make 
homes  of  their  own. 

The  Master  gave  us  His  example  that  we  should  serve 
each  other  on  the  Sabbath,  and  the  day  is  gracious  with 
memories  of  His  thoughtfulness  and  eager  activities  upon 
the  holy  day.  It  is  desirable  that  children  should  early 
learn  that  Sunday  is  not  only  the  most  joyous  but  the 
most  unselfish  day  of  the  week,  and  joyous  chiefly  because 
of  its  unselfishness.  The  curse  of  the  Continental  Sab- 
bath is  not  its  liberty,  but  its  hardness,  its  individualism, 
its  disregard  of  others.  The  best  protection  against  that 
kind  of  a  Sunday  is  the  systematic  training  of  our  young 
people  in  the  tender  and  thoughtful  care  on  Sunday  of 
the  sick,  the  lonely  and  the  unfortunate.  Among  these 
last  not  least  to  be  considered  are  those  who  serve  us  in 
so  many  ways,  whose  work  on  Sunday  a  thoughtful  con- 
sideration might  make  less  burdensome. 

Reading  References 
Nearly  all  books  on  the  Sabbath  and  Sunday  are  special  pleas  for  the 
restoration  of  the  "Puritan  Sunday.  Floody's  "  The  Scientific  Basis  of 
Sabbath  and  Sunday"  is  an  endeavor  to  trace  the  history  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  weekly  rest  day.  Books  on  Sunday  observance  in  the  home 
deal  chiefly  with  young  children  and  with  indoor  devices.  Of  these  none 
is  better  than  Faris'  "  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoons  for  the  Children." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

PARENTS'  PROBLEMS  CONNECTED  WITH 
THE  DAY  SCHOOL 

It  would  not,  of  course,  be  possible  in  this  handbook  to 
go  very  deeply  into  the  theory  of  education.  The  author's 
plan  is  to  outline  in  the  present  chapter  the  aims  of  public 
education  as  modernly  accepted  and  some  of  the  problems 
of  the  public  school  which  specially  interest  the  home,  and 
in  the  chapter  following  to  suggest  some  ways  in  which 
the  home  and  the  school  may  co-operate. 

What  the  School  is  Trying  to  do 
Many  definitions  have  been  made  of  education,  but 
they  really  all  sift  down  to  two.  These  represent  two 
standpoints:  one,  that  of  what  humanity  has  to  teach; 
the  other,  that  of  what  the  child  is  to  become.  From 
the  standpoint  of  the  need  of  the  child,  education  is  his 
fullest  possible  development.  From  the  standpoint  of 
the  work  of  the  teacher,  education  is  to  put  the  child 
in  possession  of  the  best  heritages  of  the  race.  The  for- 
mer approaches  the  child  as  a  growing  organism,  unfold- 
ing from  within;  the  latter  sees  him  as  a  receptacle  of 
knowledge,  lighted  and  watered  from  without.  The 
defect  of  the  first  viewpoint  is  that  alone  it  leaves  the 
teacher  uncertain  as  to  his  goal,  that  of  the  second  is  that 
alone  it  leaves  him  uncertain  of  his  way.  We  need  to 
hold  both  points  steadily  and  together  in  mind  when  we 
engage  in  any  of  the  processes  of  education.  Perhaps 
the  second  view  has  to  be  seen  first,  because  we  must 
know  what  we  have  to  impart  before  we  impart  anything, 
but  we  must  hold  the  first  very  soon  after,  because,  as 
we  learned  in  a  previous  chapter,  this  matter  of  ' '  impart- 
ing "  depends  very  much  upon  the  capacity  of  the  child, 
which  is  changing  and  limited. 

172 


THE  DAY  SCHOOL  173 

Education  as  Acquisition 

We  spoke  of  education  as  the  putting  of  the  child  in 
possession  of  the  best  heritages  of  the  race.  What  are 
the  best  heritages  of  the  race? 

Are  they  not  spiritual,  natural  and  humanistic  ?  Leaving 
aside  the  first  for  the  moment,  are  not  the  treasures  of 
the  race,  as  President  Butler  has  said,  all  answers  to  two 
questions,  "  the  question  how,  whose  answer  is  science, 
and  the  question  why,  whose  answer  is  philosophy"? 
And  has  not  man  insisted  also  in  asking  and  attempting 
to  answer  the  third  question,  whence  —  the  spiritual  ques- 
tion? 

In  the  nature  group  we  put  not  only  what  usually  goes 
under  that  name,  but  also  geography  and  the  various 
sciences.  In  the  human  group  we  place  everything  that 
is  concerned  with  the  story  of  man's  life,  activities  and 
aspirations.  Of  course  the  two  overlap.  Though  we  put 
arithmetic  in  the  nature  group,  yet  it  has  to  do  with  man's 
modes  of  reckoning,  and  though  we  put  language  in  the 
human  group,  we  recognize  that  it  is  the  means  by  which 
discoveries  in  natural  science  have  been  made  known. 
In  the  spiritual  group  we  place  those  impulses  and  interests 
which  have  inspired  both  philosophy  and  science. 

These  are  the  things  that  are  worth  while.  When  we 
say  that  they  are  worth  while  we  imply  that  our  civiliza- 
tion has  found  them  so;  we  imply  also  that  we  wish  our 
children  to  enter  fully  into  the  life  of  our  civilization,  to 
share  and  carry  out  the  social  purpose  of  our  race.  In 
this  category  of  worth  falls  G.  Stanley  Hall's  definition 
of  education,   "  to  teach  us  to  delight  in  what  we  should." 

Under  this  aim  would  be  included  the  preparation  of  a 
child  to  earn  a  living,  to  maintain  a  family,  to  become  a 
good  neighbor,  even  to  enrich  and  advance  the  life  of  his 
time. 

Such  is  education,  considered  as  acquisition,  as  adjust- 
ment. 

This  is  our  goal,  but  we  have  not  yet  learned  our  way. 
Perhaps  the  other  viewpoint  will  help  us  to  find  it. 


174         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Education  as  Unfoldment 
Did  we  consider  only  the  view  of  education  just  named, 
which  was  the  only  view  that  used  to  be  considered,  our 
problem  would  be  indeed  simple.  We  would  select  the 
things  worth  while,  either  in  the  order  of  their  worth  or 
of  their  convenience  to  the  teacher,  and  proceed  to  pour 
them  into  or  upon  the  child.  But  we  have  begun  to 
discover  that  at  certain  times  the  child  is  impregnable 
to  knowledge  of  certain  kinds.  The  child  from  a  very 
early  period  is  a  person,  individual,  independent,  positive. 
As  Kirkpatrick  has  it,  "  Paul  may  plant  and  Apollos  may 
water,  but  it  is  God  that  giveth  the  increase.  The  educa- 
tor may  plan  and  the  teacher  may  train,  but  the  child 
develops  because  it  is  his  God-given  nature  to  do  so." 
Neither  need  the  educator  worry,  in  the  case  of  a  normal 
child,  about  the  fact  of  development.  "  The  gardener 
does  not  lie  awake  nights  worrying  lest  the  sap  shall  not 
rise,  or  the  nutrient  materials  shall  be  taken  to  the  wrong 
place.  It  would  be  well  if  the  educator  had  something 
of  the  same  faith  regarding  the  child." 

F.  Clement  C.  Egerton,  an  English  educator,  has  put 
this  faith  into  what  he  calls  his  "  educational  creed," 
and  it  is  an  excellent  statement  of  the  modern  view  of 
education  as  seen  from  the  developmental  standpoint: 

I  believe: 

That  the  child  is  endowed  at  his  birth  with  certain  latent 
forces  and  powers,  which  it  is  the  business  of  education  to  bring 
out  and  foster; 

That  the  child  is  naturally  good,  and  that  if  he  receives  a 
fair  chance,  he  himself  will  develop  that  natural  goodness; 

That  the  child  is  better  able  to  teach  himself  than  the  most 
highly  trained  person  is  able  to  teach  him,  and  that  he  will  do 
so  if  opportunity  is  allowed  him ; 

That  the  child's  physical,  mental  and  moral  faculties  should 
be  developed  simultaneously  and  harmoniously,  not  individually 
and  one  at  the  expense  of  another. 

In  this  view  of  education  the  educator  is  a  gardener 
who  gives  the  plant  (the  growing  child)  a  chance,  by 
taking  out  of  his  way  what  would  impede  his  growth  and 


THE  DAY  SCHOOL  175 

by  furnishing  him  the  nutriment  which  our  best  knowledge 
of  his  nature  proves  to  be  best  suited  to  encourage  growth 
at  each  stage  of  his  development. 

Specifically,  our  studies  have  already  shown  us  what  are 
some  of  the  things  to  take  out  of  a  child's  way.  We  have 
seen  that  the  small  child  desires  the  concrete,  what  he 
can  observe  and  measure  and  handle  and  do  with,  so  we 
must  take  abstractions  out  of  his  way.  We  have  seen 
that  he  is  a  social  being  and  early  loves  to  act  with  others, 
so  we  had  better  take  any  isolation  in  study  out  of  his 
way  and  thus  make  education  what  Epicurus  asked  for, 
"  friends  seeking  happiness  together."  We  have  seen 
that  even  though  he  is  social  yet  he  is  strongly  individu- 
alistic and  has  his  own  ways  of  looking  at  and  compre- 
hending things,  so  we  must  take  out  of  his  way  any  lock- 
step  method  that  prevents  his  trying  his  own  experiments 
and  making  progress  at  his  own  rate. 

So  too  we  already  see  some  of  the  factors  that  will  help 
his  development :  more  self-help,  more  tactual  experiences, 
interests  that  shall  give  power  instead  of  requirements 
that  shall  use  it  up.  Perhaps  our  two  best  ways  in  educa- 
tion may  be  said  to  be,  to  teach  the  child  to  want  things 
and  how  to  find  things. 

Now,  having  said  this,  we  return  to  our  other  viewpoint 
of  education,  that  of  what  the  teacher  has  to  give.  The 
child,  we  say,  can  receive  only  as  he  is  ready,  so  the 
teacher's  task  is  to  arrange  his  treasures  not  in  the  order 
in  which  he  might  prefer  to  impart  them,  but  in  the  order 
and  in  the  aspect  in  which  the  child  can  apprehend  them. 
He  endeavors  to  adapt  his  work  to  the  inner  processes 
of  the  child.  But  he  is  also  training  the  child  to  an  ad- 
justment to  varying  situations  in  society  to  secure  their 
highest  value.  This  implies  not  only  watering  and  fertil- 
izing, but  pruning  and  trimming  the  human  plant.  The 
skilful  teacher  is  he  who  can  help  maintain  the  child's 
vigor  of  growth  and  direct  that  growth  without  maiming 
the  child. 

James'  definition  puts  the  two  viewpoints  in  one: 
"  Education  is  the  organization  of  resources  in  the  human 


17G         CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

being,   of  powers  of  conduct,   that   shall  fit  him  to  his 
social  and  physical  world." 

The  Special  Problems  of  the  School 

The  school  is  the  organized  institution  of  education. 
School  teachers  are  its  trained  and  authorized  executives. 
Having  been  granted  the  practical  monopoly  of  formal 
education,  they  are  as  a  class  deeply  cognizant  of  their 
responsibilities;  and  no  profession  today  is  so  sensitive 
to  criticism  or  so  eager  to  fulfil  its  recognized  opportunities. 
The  world  is  full  of  clamor  about  and  against  the  schools, 
and  the  livest  topic  of  our  time  is  education. 

Every  criticism  of  the  schools  is  really  a  criticism  of 
society  and  of  ourselves.  The  schools  are  as  good  as 
society  will  afford  and  as  we  deserve.  Let  us  summarize 
these  problems  briefly.  They  may  be  classified  as  the 
problems  of  opportunity,  of  expense,  of  ignorance,  of  the 
social  situation,  and  of  moral  education. 

The  problems  of  opportunity.  Though  it  is  the  recog- 
nized, the  school  is  by  no  means  the  principal,  agency 
of  education.  The  young  child  gets  more  from  the  home 
than  he  does  from  the  school,  the  school  boy  learns  more 
on  the  playground  than  he  does  in  the  schoolroom,  the  child 
has  the  chance  to  unlearn  during  vacation  nearly  all  the 
school  can  teach  him.  While  we  speak  of  "  popular  educa- 
tion," this  is  a  misnomer  since  the  people  do  not  get  it,  for 
the  majority  of  our  population  are  sixth-graders  —  or  less. 
The  school  has  no  influence  upon  the  mass  of  our  people 
after  they  are  fourteen  years  old;  they  leave  before  the 
years  of  greatest  mental  alertness  and  broadest  acquisi- 
tion. The  school,  then,  at  its  best  does  not  get  at  the 
children  in  any  way  to  share  more  than  a  small  part  of  the 
responsibility  for  their  education. 

The  life  of  the  school  is  limited  in  its  opportunity. 
Really  it  is  not  life.  We  unconsciously  say  to  ourselves: 
:<  Here  is  the  school;  there  is  life.  Here  our  children 
are  getting  ready  for  life  —  there."  But  the  child  is  not 
getting  ready  for  life;  he  is  living.  The  school  has  little 
contact  with  reality.     A  child,   asked  how  long  was  a 


THE   DAY  SCHOOL  177 

rod,  marked  off  about  an  inch  on  his  finger  —  that  was 
how  long  a  rod  looked  in  a  sketch  in  his  arithmetic.  The 
child  studies  the  pictures  of  things,  when  the  world  around 
him  is  full  of  the  things  themselves.  In  his  play  and  in 
his  helping  at  home  the  child  is  busy  with  real  projects, 
but  in  school  he  knows  only  the  history  of  projects  or  the 
descriptions  of  them.  The  overemphasis  upon  school 
athletics  is  partly  due  to  the  necessity  of  substituting  a 
highly  organized  and  artificial  form  of  exercise  for  natural 
forms  —  with  the  alternative  of  having  no  exercise  at  all. 
The  most  recent  recognition  of  educators  is  that  of  the 
need  of  enlarging  the  life  of  the  school  by  relating  it  with, 
and  even  taking  it  into,  the  life  of  the  home,  of  the  gang, 
of  business  and  of  the  community.  Up  to  now  the  reason 
it  is  so  hard  to  get  a  child  to  tell  what  he  has  done  in  school 
today  is  that  he  has  done  nothing  that  is  a  part  of  his 
real  self. 

Another  problem  is  the  problem  of  expense.  Enormous 
as  are  the  total  expenditures  for  our  schools,  they  are 
entirely  inadequate  for  the  need.  The  ideal  school  will 
close  or  greatly  contract  the  jail,  the  poorhouse  and  the 
hospital,  and  release  such  expenditures  for  education. 
One  sometimes  wishes  we  had  the  courage  to  pour  those 
moneys  at  once  into  the  institution  that  generates  human 
power,  and  see  what  would  happen  to  the  institutions  of 
human  correction  and  repair.  Teachers  are  the  most 
underpaid  persons  in  the  world  doing  intellectual  work, 
and  the  profession  is  becoming  for  that  reason  almost  a 
closed  one  to  men.  The  lack  of  money  for  the  schools 
means  the  loss  of  three  of  the  most  necessary  factors  in 
effective  education.  Three  things  a  child  chiefly  wants 
are  impossible  in  an  impoverished  school.  He  wants  to 
ask  questions;  in  a  classroom  that  has  big  numbers 
because  the  school  is  poor  this  is  impossible,  so  the  teacher 
asks  questions  of  him.  The  child  wants  to  initiate,  to 
invent,  to  make;  a  big  class  gives  no  room  for  that.  He 
wants  to  co-operate,  to  organize,  to  work  with  others;  in 
a  crowded  room  the  only  possible  way  to  teach  is  to  teach 
each  sociable  youngster  as  if  he  were  in  solitary  confine- 


178        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

ment.  Lack  of  money,  not  lack  of  educational  ideals, 
makes  the  "  hep!     hep!"  of  the  lockstep. 

The  problem  of  ignorance  is  a  real  one.  The  tragedy  of 
the  school  is  to  see  an  educational  genius  with  a  corps 
of  keen  teachers,  domineered  and  driven  by  a  school  board 
composed  of  ward  heelers  and  even  saloon  keepers. 
Another  tragedy  is  the  complete  ignorance  of  parents  not 
only  as  to  the  methods,  but  as  to  the  very  purposes  of  the 
institution  in  which  their  children  spend  the  better  part 
of  their  waking  hours.  There  is  still  ignorance  among 
educators,  even  fetish  worship.  The  fetish  of  practical- 
ness is  formal  discipline,  and  the  fetish  of  culture  is  Latin 
and  algebra.  Between  the  two  the  child  loses  his  intel- 
lectual appetite  and  leaves  school,  having  hated  all  the 
subjects  of  the  curriculum  alike. 

Our  most  pressing  educational  problems  are  those  that 
arise  out  of  the  social  situation.  There  is  room  only  to 
state  some  of  them.  How,  in  a  strongly  industrial 
and  commercial  state,  shall  we  prepare  all  our  children 
for  their  suitable  vocations  without  making  a  cleavage 
between  those  who  work  in  the  office  and  those  who  work 
in  the  shop?  How  shall  we  mould  education  to  fit  life 
needs  and  not  the  demands  of  college  entrance  examina- 
tions? On  the  other  hand,  how  shall  we  give  such  an 
intellectual  thirst  to  those  who  do  not  go  to  college  that 
culture  shall  be  possible  to  them?  How  may  a  man  in 
his  own  life  satisfy  the  demands  of  his  business  and  those 
of  his  higher  nature? 

The  problem  of  moral  education  is  becoming  recognized 
as  the  greatest  that  is  before  our  schools  today.  We 
have  space  to  do  little  more  than  state  the  problem.  Our 
best  authorities  are  saying  that  character  is  the  chief 
aim  in  education.  Social  and  national  and  domestic 
welfare  are  impossible  without  it,  and  no  one  is  an  edu- 
cated person  who  does  not  know  how  and  is  not  able  to 
use  the  tools  of  education  nobly.  Yet  how  shall  charac- 
ter be  obtained  ?  Will  it  come  out  of  textbooks  and  formal 
and  direct  teaching?  Or  is  it  entirely  true  that  "  charac- 
ter is  caught,  not  taught  "?     Have  we  sufficient  materials 


THE  DAY  vSCHOOL  179 

for  the  making  of  character  in  the  very  organization  and 
discipline  of  the  schools?  Or  is  it  true,  as  our  Roman 
Catholic  brethren  so  earnestly  insist,  that  there  is  no 
guarantee  of  character  without  a  religious  basis,  that  this 
religious  basis  cannot  be  assured  to  all,  unless  it  is  given 
by  the  day  school?  Shall  we,  therefore,  anticipate 
creating  Protestant  parochial  schools  or  dividing  the 
school  moneys  among  the  sects  or  establishing  supple- 
mental schools  of  religious  education  in  our  churches? 
These  are  the  questions,  and  the  answers  are  many. 
Perhaps  the  present  trend  of  thought  among  Protestant 
leaders  is  in  these  directions : 

1.  The  religious  basis  is  needed  as  the  foundation  of 
character;  but 

2.  Our  governmental  structure  will  never  permit  the 
use  of  public  money  for  the  teaching  of  religion  by  the 
sects. 

3.  Protestant  people  favor  the  introduction  into  the 
schools  of  more  direct,  wise,  moral  teaching,  but  rely  still 
upon  the  character  of  carefully  chosen  teachers  as  the 
best  moral  asset  of  the  public  schools. 

4.  They  are  strongly  aroused  to  the  need  of  renewing 
and  strengthening  moral  and  religious  teaching  by  parents. 

5.  They  are  working  hard  for  the  improvement  of 
the  Sunday  school,  and  its  extension  in  social  and 
educational  directions  into  the  week. 

6.  They  are  deeply  interested  in  plans  for  giving 
school  credit  for  religious  teaching  —  that  is,  of  standard 
educational  quality,  done  outside  the  school  by  any  sect. 
They  have  begun  to  establish  week-day  instruction  in 
religion  in  the  churches. 

7.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  they  have  not  seen  clearly 
the  wise  method  of  affording  adequate  religious  education 
to  the  children  of  those  who  are  outside  the  reach  of  the 
churches. 

The  Parent's  Viewpoint  of  These  Problems 
The  parent  sees  these  problems  not  only  from  a  general 
but  from  a  specific  viewpoint.     He  himself  has  committed 


180       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

children  to  the  local  public  schools  and  is  very  desirous 
that  the  best  things  in  education,  so  far  as  he  knows  what 
they  are,  be  granted  to  these  young  people  who  are  so 
dear  to  him.  Let  us,  therefore,  go  over  what  has  just 
been  said,  with  the  parent's  viewpoint  particularly  in 
mind.  Let  us  ask  ourselves  some  of  these  questions 
concerning  the  schools  as  related  to  our  own  children. 

1.  Is  the  school  which  my  child  attends  putting  him 
in  possession  of  the  best  heritage  of  the  race,  so  far  as 
that  particular  school  ought  to  do  so?  If  not,  is  the 
reason  because  of  unintelligent  direction  by  the  school 
board,  imperfect  supervision  by  the  superintendent  or 
principal,  inadequate  equipment,  or  uncertain  teaching? 

2.  Is  the  school  which  my  child  is  attending  satis- 
factorily assisting  in  this  child's  unfoldment?  If  it  is  not, 
which  one  of  the  reasons  just  mentioned  accounts  for 
it;  or,  if  none  of  these,  is  the  fault  that  of  the  child  or  is 
it,  to  some  degree,  my  own  fault? 

3.  Do  I,  to  my  own  knowledge,  sufficiently  know  the 
ideals  and  methods  of  the  teacher  to  whom  I  have  com- 
mitted my  child  for  so  many  hours  of  each  day? 

4.  To  what  extent  is  this  special  school  relating  its 
work  to  real  life?  How  may  the  study  or  work  of  the 
school  be  guided  that  it  may  be  more  closely  related? 

5.  Studying  the  last  school  report,  do  I  find  that  we 
are  spending  upon  our  local  schools  a  sum  of  money 
proportionate  to  our  population? 

6.  Are  these  expenditures  proportionate  to  the  needs 
of  teachers  (salaries) ,  to  an  adequate  building,  to  sufficient 
teaching  material  (such  as  books,  laboratories,  shops, 
etc.),  or  to  the  best  supervision? 

7.  To  what  degree  is  there  any  evidence  of  deliberate 
or  careless  waste? 

8.  What  is  the  average  size  of  classes  to  the  teacher  in 
the  school  which  my  child  attends? 

9.  What  methods  of  moral  education  does  our  city 
stand  for,  and  what  are  being  used  in  this  school  ?  What 
textbooks,  if  any;  how  often  should  such  exercises  occur; 
who  supervises  and  instructs  the  teachers  as  to  their  use  ? 


THE  DAY  SCHOOL  181 

10.  Which  impresses  a  child  more,  the  teacher  or  the 
subject  of  study?  What  inference  does  this  suggest  to 
me? 

Reading  References 

Thorndike's  "  Education:  a  First  Book  "  gives  an  adequate  summary 
of  educational  theory.  Smith's  "  All  the  Children  of  All  the  People," 
Weeks'  "  The  Education  of  Tomorrow,"  and  Munroe's  "  New  Demands 
in  Education  "  are  popular  discussions  of  school  problems,  the  first  em- 
phasizing the  need  of  recognizing  and  teaching  the  individual,  the  other 
two  the  importance  of  adjusting  the  child  through  education  to  the  times 
in  which  he  lives.  Dewey's  "  The  School  and  Society  "  is  a  mighty  little 
book,  influential  in  causing  us  to  realize  the  social  outreach  of  the  school. 

Some  further  questions  by  means  of  which  one  may  test  the  local  school 
situation  are  suggested  in  Kirkpatrick's  "  Fundamentals  of  Child  Study," 
pp.  357-360.  A  plan  for  a  general  survey  by  the  class  is  worked  out 
toward  the  close  of  this  course.  The  class  may  decide  to  use  it  at  this 
time. 

To  those  who  are  deeply  interested  in  education  and  particularly  those 
who  have  young  children,  the  present-day  tendencies  in  education  are  of 
enough  import  at  least  to  involve  further  reading,  and  perhaps  a  day  of 
special  discussion  in  the  class.  The  one  most  helpful  book  here  is  Dewey's 
"  Schools  of  Tomorrow."  Dr.  John  Dewey,  the  educational  philosopher, 
has,  with  the  aid  of  his  daughter,  taken  up  one  by  one  the  new  movements 
in  school  life,  describing  each  system  graphically  and  discussing  its  mean- 
ing as  a  part  of  child  training.  The  keynote  of  the  survey  is  this  sentence: 
"  Learning  is  a  necessary  incident  of  dealing  with  real  situations."  Each 
method  described  has  its  roots  in  the  endeavor  to  put  the  child  close  to  a 
real  situation,  to  substitute  actual  experiences  for  book  knowledge.  The 
kindergarten  is  described,  and  to  those  who  wish  to  understand  how 
varied  is  the  apparatus  that  is  taking  the  place  to  a  large  degree  of  Froebel's 
"  gifts  "  a  booklet,  published  by  Teachers'  College,  Columbia  University, 
entitled  "  Experimental  Studies  in  Kindergarten  Education  "  is  recom- 
mended as  giving  in  fuller  detail  what  Dr.  Dewey  briefly  outlines.  The 
contributions  and  the  limitations  of  the  Montessori  system  are  discussed. 
This  chapter  may  well  be  supplemented  by  Kilpatrick's  "  The  Montessori 
System  Examined,"  the  fullest  and  fairest  critique  of  the  brilliant  Italian 
educator's  methods.  Connected  with  the  discussion  of  the  kindergarten, 
much  space  is  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  play  in  education.  Here  one 
will  enjoy  reading  the  works  of  such  enthusiasts  as  Lee  ("  Play  in  Educa- 
tion") and  Curtis  ("  Education  through  Play  "  and  "  The  Practical  Or- 
ganization of  Play  ").  But  lest  one  should  give  play  too  large  a  function 
or  make  the  term  "  play  "  cover  wholly  what  we  have  generally  known  as 
work,  Munroe's  "  New  Demands  in  Education  "  will  be  wholesome  as  a 
corrective.  The  description  of  the  Fairhope  School  of  Organic  Education 
and  the  Elementary  School  of  the  University  of  Missouri  carries  us  up  a 
step  higher  through  the  grades.  When  Dr.  Dewey  comes  to  the  industrial 
and  pre-vocational  parts  of  education  naturally  he  describes  the  Gary 
schools,  to  which  further  references  are  given  in  our  chapters  upon  voca- 
tion (XXXIII-XXXV).  The  book  does  not  dwell  to  any  extent  upon  edu- 
cation in  the  arts.  Modern  educators  are  insisting  that  behind  all  art 
education  there  must  be  an  artistic  background  and  the  factor  of  interested 


182        CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

appreciation.  This  ground  is  well  covered  in  Henry  Turner  Bailey's  little 
book,  "  Art  Education."  Dr.  Dewey  does  not  go  on  to  the  high  school. 
Our  most  recent  outline  of  the  highest  grades  of  popular  education  is 
found  in  Johnston's  "  The  Modern  High  School." 

We  do  not  find  in  Dewey's  book  very  much  about  that  most  vital  of 
questions  —  the  kind  of  man  we  want  the  schools  to  make.  To  aid  us  in 
thinking  this  out,  there  is  a  brilliant  and  sometimes  exasperating  study  by 
C.  Hanford  Henderson:  "  What  is  it  to  be  Educated?  " 

The  annual  proceedings  of  the  National  Education  Association  (Ann 
Arbor,  Mich.)  and  the  annual  reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Education  are  in- 
expensive and  serviceable  media  by  which  to  keep  abreast  of  the  current 
movements  and  discussions  in  this  great  field. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
HOME   AND   SCHOOL 

The  two  persons  who  share  between  them  the  largest 
part  of  a  child's  time  ought  to  be  the  closest  friends  and 
co-workers.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  majority  of  mothers 
do  not  know  more  than  the  name  of  the  teacher  who 
spends  five  to  six  hours  a  day  for  five  days  a  week  with 
their  children,  and  the  majority  of  teachers  have  never 
even  seen  the  mothers  of  half  their  children.  There  are 
several  reasons  for  this  singular  situation.  One  is  the 
impracticability  of  a  teacher's  going  to  the  individual 
homes  of  forty  pupils.  Another  is  that,  under  the  de- 
partmental system,  the  child  has  more  than  one  teacher. 
But  the  chief  difficulty  is  with  the  mother,  who  in  rele- 
gating the  major  part  of  the  intellectual  training  of  her 
children  to  the  school  teacher  forgets  that  the  whole 
child  goes  to  school,  and  that  she  still  has  much  to  give 
to  and  much  to  get  from  that  teacher. 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  discuss  briefly  some  of 
the  manifold  ways  in  which  the  home  and  the  school  are 
related. 

Home  and  School  Leagues 

As  is  so  often  the  case  in  our  country,  the  fresh  recog- 
nition of  the  desirability  of  interesting  the  home  more 
vitally  ^n  the  school  has  already  taken  on  the  dimensions 
of  a  "  movement  "  and  there  have  sprung  up  Parent- 
Teacher  Associations,  or  Home  and  School  Leagues, 
which  are  federated  in  state  and  national  organizations. 
From  the  viewpoint  of  school  teachers  and  superinten- 
dents, by  whom  these  societies  are  usually  heartily  sup- 
ported, they  are  an  earnest  effort  to  bring  school  needs 
and  conditions  within  the  actual  knowledge  of  school 
patrons.  They  are  sometimes  a  bold  endeavor  to  appeal 
from  ignorant  or  bigoted  school  boards  or  political  rings 
to  the  people  themselves,  and  often  the  very  development 

183 


184        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

of  such  associations  leads  to  the  removal  of  popular 
prejudices  due  to  ignorance,  to  a  larger  and  more  honest 
expenditure  upon  the  schools  and  to  the  introduction  of 
modern  methods  of  education.  From  the  parents'  point 
of  view  they  express  the  endeavor  to  study  and  improve 
the  schools  in  which  their  own  children  are  being  educated. 
The  individual  mother  is  timid  about  approaching  the 
busy,  professional  teacher,  but  protected  by  the  group  of 
which  she  is  a  part,  she  comes  gladly  to  the  school,  and 
learns,  perchance,  that  that  professional  person  also  has  a 
mother's  heart  and  an  extraordinary  knowledge  of  her 
own  child,  whom  she  had  occasionally  thought  to  be  ne- 
glected or  misunderstood.  Mrs.  Grice  reports  a  significant 
difference  between  the  attitude  of  fathers  and  of  mothers 
when  they  come  into  the  school  building  to  attend  their 
first  parent-teacher  meeting.  The  father  is  interested  in 
the  equipment  and  the  system,  but  the  mother  always 
asks,  "'  Where  does  Johnny  sit?  "  The  two  attitudes 
suggest  both  the  administrative  and  the  personal  improve- 
ments that  are  likely  to  come  out  of  such  conferences. 
And  despite  the  evident  need  for  the  former,  one  cannot 
but  be  convinced  that  the  opportunity  for  the  starting  of 
co-operation  between  the  teacher  and  the  mother  in  the 
case  of  the  individual  boy  or  girl  is  the  best  result  of  such 
organizations. 

If  I  were  asked  what  is  the  time  and  place  where  a 
mother  may  make  a  more  profitable  condensed  study  of 
her  child  than  any  other,  I  would  say,  in  a  patient,  alert 
morning  spent  in  his  schoolroom  watching  him. at  his 
work.  Such  an  observation  usually  removes  entirely  any 
tendency  to  criticize  the  teacher  for  "  bearing  down  "  on 
the  child  and  brings  the  mother  to  desire  humbly  to  con- 
fer with  the  woman  whose  intellectual  preparation  and 
personal  knowledge  combine  to  make  her  a  better  expert 
about  that  child  than  she  is  herself. 

It  is  not  favoritism  that  produces  the  result  that  the 
child  of  the  mother  who  visits  the  school  makes  better 
progress.  It  is  that  the  mother  is  better  prepared  to  help 
the  child  to  right  study  habits  at  home  and  that   the 


HOME  AND  SCHOOL  185 

teacher  knows  that  she  may  depend  upon  the  mother  for 
that  hearty  support  without  which  the  teacher's  pre- 
scriptions for  the  child  are  ineffective. 

Out  of  such  mutual  understanding  come  results  of  even 
larger  significance.  Parents  who  know  and  believe  in  the 
school  keep  their  child  in  school,  defend  him  from  the 
adolescent  whim  to  wander  or  work  and  are  willing  to 
sacrifice  for  his  higher  education. 

Teaching  the  Child  at  Home 
Recent  books  and  magazine  articles  give  expression  to 
a  wholesome  reaction  in  favor  of  resuming  in  the  home  a 
larger  share  in  the  child's  education.  One  of  these  ten- 
dencies is  toward  teaching  the  child  as  long  as  possible  at 
home  instead  of  in  the  school.  Several  books  have  been 
published  showing  how  children,  kept  from  any  school 
and  given  careful  and  earnest  attention  at  home,  have 
entered  college  at  eleven  or  twelve  years  of  age  or  have 
made  extraordinary  linguistic  or  artistic  attainments. 
That  such  results  are  possible  cannot  be  denied,  although 
in  almost  every  published  instance  the  brilliancy  of  the 
parents  suggests  that  the  children  themselves  were  of 
high  potentiality.  Whether  these  results  are  worth  while 
remains  to  be  proven.  To  precipitate  a  child  of  twelve 
who  has  lived  entirely  with  adults  and  who  is  "  prepared  " 
for  college  in  only  the  one  element  of  acquisitive  knowledge 
into  the  sophisticated  society  of  youths  of  eighteen  who 
have  been  through  the  rough  and  tumble  of  the  schools 
and  of  athletic  and  social  life,  is  somewhat  dangerous. 
That  these  lonely  pilgrims  from  an  intellectual  Arcadia 
never  quite  adjust  themselves  to  the  university  Vanity 
Fair  and  are  always  looked  askance  at  there,  seems  clear. 
It  is  an  open  question  whether  their  over-development 
in  one  direction  is  really  time  saved,  either  in  getting 
ready  for  life  or  in  living  the  full  life  of  their  time. 

There  is,  however,  something  to  be  said  on  the  other 
side.  If  college  or  life  is  not  yet  adjusted  to  the  youth, 
who  through  painstaking  care  and  individual  instruction 
has  saved  from  two  to  five  years  of  routine  preparation, 


186       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

then  so  much  the  worse  for  life  and  for  college.  If  the 
process  is  worth  while,  the  adjustment  is  bound  to  come. 
No  doubt  there  is  much  waste  in  wholesale  teaching;  no 
doubt  there  is  much  loss  of  time  in  teaching  in  the  wrong 
order  or  in  the  wrong  way.  If  these  bright  parents  can 
show  us  some  needed  educational  changes,  let  us  be 
thankful,  and  prepare  our  public  schools  and  higher 
institutions  to  accept  them. 

Another  motive  is  emphasizing  the  desirability  of  home 
training  through  the  earliest  years.  A  well-nourished 
child  from  a  home  of  intellectual  habits  is  mentally 
from  one  to  two  years  in  advance  of  the  average  child 
in  the  first  grades  in  school.  If  he  enters  the  grade 
system  at  the  bottom  and  falls  into  the  lockstep  he  con- 
tinually generates  more  power  than  he  can  use,  his  curi- 
osity and  alertness  are  deadened  and  he  is  likely  to  reach 
high  school  a  monotonous  and  uninterested  individual. 
If  the  mother  has  time  to  teach  him,  and  it  is  surprising 
how  little  extra  time  it  takes  if  she  uses  the  educational 
opportunities  of  his  e very-day  play  and  conversation,  and 
if  she  will  skilfully  adapt  herself  to  school  requirements, 
she  may  a  little  later  send  into  the  schools,  at  a  consider- 
ably advanced  grade,  a  child  who  is  healthier,  more  alert 
and  fully  able  to  meet  the  requirements.  Such  children, 
if  no  accidents  prevent,  may  be  expected  to  leave  high 
school  a  year  or  two  before  the  average,  still  eager  to 
progress,  having  had  a  normal  social  experience  and  des- 
tined usually  to  be  leaders  in  the  world  of  which  they  are 
a  comfortable  part.  But  each  child,  whether  he  goes  to 
school  or  not,  needs  child  companions. 

This  brings  up  what  is  often  a  very  pressing  question: 
Shall  we,  on  account  of  the  undesirable  companions  which 
our  child  will  meet,  send  him  to  the  public  school?  Prob- 
ably the  thorough-going  democrat  says,  "  Yes.  Bring  him 
up  to  judge  men  as  men,  and  don't  let  him  be  a  snob  or  an 
aristocrat."  The  careful  mother  docs  not  find  the  answer 
as  easy  as  this.  She  may  be  worried  by  the  carelessness 
of  her  neighbors  as  to  contagion ;  she  may  question  whether 
she  wishes  her  child  exposed  to  certain  racial  ideals  and 


HOME  AND  SCHOOL  187 

customs  inconsistent  with  her  own;  she  may  fear  actual 
moral  contamination.  The  difficulty  often  is  simply  one 
of  educational  opportunity,  the  subjects  of  study  and  the 
methods  of  the  public  school  not  being  adequate  to 
qualify  her  child  for  entrance  to  an  institution  of  higher 
learning.  We  can  hardly  deny  that  the  tendency  is  in- 
creasing, in  the  larger  centers,  toward  a  separation  of 
pupils  even  in  the  public  schools  along  lines  of  race  and 
wealth  and  that  private  schools  are  growing  in  popularity. 
The  same  father  who  takes  his  own  first-born  out  of  public 
school  may  be  much  interested  in  increasing  the  appropria- 
tions for  the  public  schools  and  in  raising  their  standards, 
in  the  hope  that  it  may  be  feasible  for  him  to  send  a  second 
child  to  them.  In  a  city  where  school  appropriations  are 
generous  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  few  private  schools 
can  afford  to  pay  the  salaries  to  their  teachers  that  are 
paid  in  the  public  schools.  Their  patrons,  too,  are  often 
unwilling  to  have  their  children  face  as  rigorous  standards 
of  scholarship. 

The  advisability  of  home  study  after  school  is  still 
being  discussed.  Of  one  fact  we  are  sure, —  not  many  chil- 
dren in  the  early  grades  know  how  to  study  alone.  When 
home  study  is  required  it  does  not  become  effective  unless 
it  is  supervised  and  guided  by  the  parent. 

The  Home  as  a  Laboratory 
Mention  was  made  in  an  earlier  chapter  of  movements 
toward  using  the  home  tools  and  equipment  as  the  most 
inexpensive  and  effective  laboratory  of  the  practical  arts, 
the  home  kitchen  for  domestic  science,  the  home  garden 
for  horticulture  and  nature  study.  The  movement  is 
not  a  new  one.  For  many  years  the  teachers  have  been 
giving  tasks  which  offered  the  home  opportunities  for 
practice  in  even  wider  directions.  They  have  directly 
appealed  to  parents  by  sending  home  tasks  in  drawing 
for  which  the  home  could  furnish  models,  tasks  for  ob- 
servation and  nature  study  for  which  the  home  grounds 
would  afford  living  things,  tasks  in  reading  and  memoriz- 
ing which  the  home  might  easily  supplement  with  its 


188       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

own  books  and  literary  interests,  home-study  assignments 
which  parents  might  easily  make  a  part  of  the  table  talk. 
These  things  we  ought  to  have  done,  and  not  left  the  other 
undone.  Musicians  tell  us  that,  no  matter  how  much 
practice  a  child  may  have,  he  cannot  really  get  a  musical 
education  if  he  lives  in  a  home  without  a  musical  back- 
ground. Why  do  we  not  recognize  the  larger  truth  that 
a  child,  even  if  in  school  he  reads  the  poets,  sings  from  the 
masters  and  mingles  with  those  who  have  discovered  the 
secrets  of  nature,  may  not  become  really  educated  if  in 
his  home  nobody  reads  anything  but  the  papers,  knows 
any  music  but  ragtime  nor  sees  anything  out  of  doors  but 
the  weather? 

The  question  has  often  been  asked  why  it  is  that  men 
and  women  of  genius  and  success  have  so  generally  come 
from  a  particular  type  of  home,  a  home  of  plain  living,  but 
of  high  thinking.  Plain  rather  than  luxurious  living  is 
no  doubt  good  for  a  child,  but  the  generation  of  power 
by  such  a  home  is  more  in  the  fact  that  the  life  which  the 
school  recommends  actually  exists  in  this  household. 

The  School  as  a  Larger  Home 
Many  parents  and  homes  have  not  the  equipment  for 
this  fine  endeavor.  In  the  great  cities  especially,  families 
that  are  pigeon-holed  in  flats  find  their  shelters  suitable 
for  only  the  lower  functions  of  a  home,  the  eating  and 
sleeping,  and  seek  their  recreation,  their  culture  and  their 
social  life  elsewhere.  In  other  words,  the  home  has  to  go 
outside  itself  to  be  a  home.  Thus  the  saloon,  the  club, 
the  dance  hall,  the  motion-picture  house,  the  amusement 
park,  do  for  the  family  what  it  cannot  do  for  itself.  The 
disadvantages  of  the  situation  are  obvious.  Commer- 
cialized amusement  tends  to  fall  below  rather  than  to  rise 
above  the  aspirations  of  those  to  whom  it  caters.  It 
easily  links  itself  to  vice  because  it  is  more  profitable  to 
commercialize  vice  than  it  is  amusement.  The  saloon  is 
the  front  door  to  drunkenness  and  crime  and  the  dance  hall 
to  immorality.  But  the  greatest  disadvantage  is  that  it 
separates  the  members  of  the  family.     The  home  can 


HOME  AND   SCHOOL  189 

stand  any  strain  but  that.  At  this  point  the  school,  the 
people's  institution,  steps  forward  and  offers  its  help. 
Its  buildings  would  otherwise  be  empty  and  idle  at  the 
hours  when  the  home  needs  them.  They  are,  therefore, 
made  into  recreation  centers,  to  which  the  whole  family 
may  repair.  They  may  play  or  study  or  work  or  simply 
gather  in  social  groups.  They  may  make  use  of  the  li- 
brary, the  pianos,  the  gymnasium,  the  baths  and  the  class- 
rooms. There  is  a  chance  for  motion  pictures,  dancing, 
athletics,  and  a  free  forum.  Such  a  school,  as  one  of  our 
social  leaders  says,  "  duplicates  the  settlement  in  all  but 
its  personal  work,  and  the  church-house  or  parochial 
school  in  all  but  its  distinctly  religious  work,"  and  its 
ideal  is:  "  For  all  classes,  of  all  ages,  vitalizing  the  voca- 
tional aim,  pointing  towards  the  religious  life  of  the 
church,  providing  the  incentive  which  the  vocations  lack, 
and  unifying  the  socialization  of  man  as  a  member  of  the 
State  and  of  the  Nation."  It  stimulates  the  father, 
recreates  the  mother,  and  gives  the  child  a  more  interest- 
ing life  than  even  that  of  the  street.  It  reacts  favorably 
toward  the  home,  while  at  the  same  time  it  carries  the 
ideals  of  the  school  to  each  member  of  the  family. 

Reading  References 

Mrs.  E.  C.  Grice's  little  book,  "  Home  and  School  in  Widening  Circles 
of  Influence,"  describes  the  work  of  the  well-known  Home  and  School 
Leagues  of  Philadelphia,  and  gives  practical  hints  for  forming  and  con- 
ducting such  associations. 

A  number  of  books  exist,  intended  to  help  mothers  in  the  home  training  of 
little  children.  Of  a  general  character  is  Nora  Archibald  Smith's  "  A 
Home-Made  Kindergarten."  Mrs.  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher's  "  A  Montes- 
sori  Mother  "  tells  how  to  use  the  Montessori  ideas  and  apparatus  in  the 
nursery.  Educators  prefer  that  mothers  shall  not  attempt  to  carry  little 
children  very  far  in  the  technique  of  learning  before  they  enter  school. 
V.  M.  Hillyer's  "  Child  Training  "  recognizes  this  tendency.  It  gives  the 
mother  explicit  directions  for  using  the  common  home  opportunities  for 
informal  educational  purposes.  Pages  3-84  are  devoted  to  habit  drills; 
pages  85-106,  to  physical  training;  pages  141-170,  to  rhythmicarts;  pages 
185-218,  to  simple  manual  training.  For  specific  training  the  following 
may  be  useful:  Kotzschmar's  "Half  Hour  Lessons  in  Music,"  Constance 
Johnson's  "  When  Mother  Lets  Us  Cook,"  and  William  Byron  Forbush's 
"  Manual  of  Play." 

Suggestions  that  will  be  helpful  to  mothers  in  guiding  home  study  are 
found  in  Miss  Earhart's  "  Training  the  Child  to  Study,"  139-176. 

Perry's  "  The  Larger  Use  of  School  Houses  "  describes  the  varied  uses 
of  the  socialized  public  school. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 
CERTAIN    COMMON     FAULTS     OF     CHILDREN 

Thus  far  we  have  implied  that  our  children  will  always, 
under  careful  training,  develop  satisfactorily  at  every 
stage.  It  is  time  for  us  to  take  account  of  a  few  less 
agreeable  manifestations  that  appear,  often  quite  sud- 
denly, even  in  the  most  patiently  nurtured  children.  We 
select  some  that  cause  anxiety  in  the  home.  They  have 
social  relationship  in  that  they  affect  social  as  well  as 
individual  morality. 

Lying 

This  vice  whenever  it  appears  is  always  shocking  to  the 
young  parent.  To  "  tell  the  truth  in  his  heart  "  has  even 
from  the  days  of  the  psalmist  seemed  fundamental  to  the 
moral  life.  The  parent  does  not  realize  that  when  an- 
other psalmist  said,  perhaps  in  haste,  that  all  men  are 
liars,  he  might  have  said  it  at  his  leisure  concerning  young 
children.  And  yet  it  would  be  just  as  fair  to  say  that  the 
child  is  naturally  a  truth-teller  as  that  he  is  a  liar.  The 
fact  is  that  up  to  six  or  so  he  tells  just  what  he  thinks  as 
well  as  what  he  sees.  He  simply  reports  the  string  of 
mingled  fancies,  facts,  suppositions  and  hearsay  that  his 
active  brain  has  fastened  together.  He  accepts  whatever 
is  told  him  and  he  believes  that  thinking  a  thing  is  so  is 
the  same  as  its  being  so.  "  Why  doesn't  someone  tell 
me  what  the  truth  is,  so  that  I  can  tell  it?  "  a  little 
child  cried  out  one  day  after  he  had  been  rebuked  for 
lying.  Telling  the  truth  is  not  a  simple  or  easy  nor  al- 
ways a  successful  process  with  any  of  us. 

Most  of  the  lying  of  little  children  is  due  to  fancy. 
What  they  heard  out  of  a  book  yesterday  or  dreamed  in 
the  night  gets  mixed  up  with  what  they  saw  today,  and 
reported,  with  faulty  memories,  it  bears  only  a  cousinly 
resemblance  to  fact.     Good  imagination  holds  the  germ 

190 


CERTAIN   COMMON   FAULTS   OF   CHILDREN  191 

of  creative  literature  and  art,  and  if  you  would  not  have 
your  child  as  monotonous  and  as  colorless  in  his  life  as 
yourself  you  cannot  be  entirely  sorry  that  he  sometimes 
seems  to  over-exercise  the  truth. 

Then,  too,  there  is  the  lie  that  is  due  to  laziness.  The 
child  was  not  entirely  attentive,  he  does  not  quite  re- 
member, and  he  gives  the  easiest  answer  that  occurs  to 
him.  Naturally,  it  is  the  answer  that  will  be  most  likely 
to  keep  him  out  of  trouble. 

There  is  the  lie  of  vanity.  The  boy  desires  to  make  a 
great  impression  and  so  he  tells  big  stories  about  himself. 

Then  there  is  "  the  lie  heroic,"  when  the  child  lies  to 
protect  others.  Part  of  the  code  of  childhood  is  that 
"  Truth  is  for  friends." 

Ellen  Key  divides  all  lies  into  two  classes,  "  hot  lies," 
and  "  cold  lies."  Cold  lies  are  deliberate  untruthfulness; 
they  are  told  to  get  some  advantage  or  to  defend  one's 
self  from  ill  consequences.  Hot  lies  are  the  expression  of 
an  excited  mind  or  of  vigorous  fancy.  Cold  lies  must  be 
punished,  hot  lies  should  not  be  punished  but  corrected. 

We  need  to  consider  the  age  of  the  child  who  tells  un- 
truths. If  he  is  but  five,  we  may  suppose  that  he  is  likely 
to  tell  many  a  fanciful  story;  if  he  lies  at  eight  he  may  per- 
haps be  talking  for  effect;  but  if  a  child  of  ten  tells  a  lie, 
it  is  a  more  serious  matter.  Such  a  child  is  not  deluded 
by  fancy,  but  is  either  forming  the  habit  of  saying  what 
is  most  easy  or  pleasant  or  is  being  cowed  into  telling 
untruths  for  the  sake  of  self -protection. 

Some  parents  declare  that  they  will  never  whip  a  child 
except  for  lying  and  for  cowardice.  These  are  at  least 
two  faults  for  which  a  child  should  never  be  whipped. 
To  whip  a  child  because  he  is  imaginative  only  confuses 
his  brain,  and  to  whip  him  when  he  has  lied  from  desire 
only  tempts  him  to  secure  his  desires  by  lying  still  more 
skilfully.  The  best  way  to  correct  a  child  who  lies  im- 
aginatively is  to  train  him  patiently  to  observe  accurately 
and  to  tell  exactly  what  he  sees.  The  child  who  lies  for 
advantage  needs  an  even  longer  course  of  treatment.  He 
must  have  both  the  prospect  of  profit  and  the  element  of 


192        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

fear  removed  from  his  mind.  No  matter  how  wrongly  he 
has  acted,  he  must  never  be  put  by  his  parents  in  a  position 
where  he  will  be  better  off  in  any  way  for  telling  an  un- 
truth. Give  the  child  room.  Many  children  are  nagged 
into  lying  by  being  perpetually  spied  upon.  Accept 
truth  from  the  children.  Trust  them,  and  although  it  is 
hard  to  trust  them  when  they  lie  to  you,  keep  on  trusting 
them.  A  ten-year-old  boy  added  a  new  and  good  inter- 
pretation to  the  Washington  cherry-tree  story  when  he 
said,  "  It  was  no  trouble  to  tell  the  truth  when  one  had 
such  a  kind  father."  And  finally,  one  must  add  seriously, 
that  the  problem  of  raising  a  truth-telling  child  is  chiefly 
that  of  furnishing  him  with  truth-loving  parents. 

Stealing 
This  is  another  common  fault  of  children  which  makes 
many  parents  panic-stricken,  until  they  learn  that  almost 
no  home  has  been  without  the  experience.  "  Taking 
things  "  is  almost  universal  among  small  children.  A 
number  of  innocent  beliefs  makes  it  natural.  The  prop- 
erty sense,  as  we  have  seen,  is  slow  in  developing.  Even 
children  old  enough  to  go  to  school  express  the  convic- 
tion that  they  are  to  some  degree  part  owners  in  every- 
thing. This  feeling  rises  probably  from  the  communism 
of  the  home,  where  much  is  held  in  common.  Parents 
who  encourage  their  children  to  share  their  playthings, 
thinking  the  custom  lends  itself  to  friendliness  and  know- 
ing that  it  does  to  economy,  are  in  the  writer's  judgment 
making  a  mistake.  It  does  not  develop  friendliness  and 
it  confuses  the  child  as  to  what  does  properly  belong  to 
him.  It  encourages  the  idea  that  it  is  not  wrong  to  take 
even  money,  if  it  is  money  found  in  the  house.  Other 
motives  that  lead  to  "  picking  and  stealing,"  as  the 
catechism  has  it,  are  extraordinary  desire,  lack  of  self- 
control,  the  spirit  of  adventure,  and  a  sort  of  group 
predatory  instinct.  Most  commonly  though,  when  this 
occurs  in  the  home,  the  child,  rightly  or  wrongly,  attrib- 
utes his  conduct  to  some  sense  of  injustice.  He  has  not 
got  his  share,  one  of  his  parents  has  been  unfair  to  him, 


CERTAIN   COMMON  FAULTS   OF   CHILDREN  193 

his  allowance  has  been  penalized,  and  he  determines  to 
make  it  up.  Thus  a  real  misunderstanding,  a  crude  sense 
of  justice  and  some  wish  for  revenge  combine  to  bring 
about  an  unfortunate  situation.  Denseness  on  the  part 
of  parents  as  to  what  is  going  on  in  the  child's  mind,  as- 
sisted too  often  by  the  careless  custom  of  leaving  money 
about  and  of  not  asking  for  an  accounting  of  entrusted 
sums,  results  in  parental  consternation.  The  general 
course  of  cure  is  plain.  There  must  be  the  completest 
fairness,  firmness  and  the  most  understanding  generosity 
on  the  part  of  the  parent.  The  child  must  through  an 
allowance  system  be  treated  as  a  partner  within  the  firm 
and  not  as  a  creditor  outside.  There  must  also  be  careful 
training  in  business  methods  and  business  honesty. 

Teasing,  Bullying  and  Quarrelling 
These  faults  refer  not  to  relations  between  child  and 
parent,  but  between  brothers  and  sisters.     They  rest  in 
some  exceedingly  human  traits  of  childhood. 

In  the  first  place,  there  seems  to  be  a  genuine  anger 
instinct  in  a  child  at  birth.  It  comes  down  from  un- 
counted generations  during  which  it  was  the  means  of  race- 
preservation  and  the  stimulus  to  activity.  Another  has 
remarked  that  the  very  keynote  to  boyhood  is  struggle. 
A  child,  who  was  congratulated  by  his  mother  because 
when  going  into  the  country  for  a  vacation  he  would  be 
likely  to  find  some  other  boys  to  make  friends  with,  re- 
plied, "  Oh,  I  do  hope  I  shall  find  some  enemies  too." 
He  was  quite  typical.  The  anger  instinct  is  stimulated 
by  its  own  peculiar  pleasures,  the  pleasures  of  attention, 
advantage  and  victory.  Its  expressions  are  very  little 
hindered  during  the  years  of  lack  of  self-control. 

Family  relationship  does  not  secure  immunity  from  the 
emotion  of  anger.  Quite  the  contrary.  A  terse  modern 
proverb  has  it :  "  God  gives  us  our  relations.  Thank  God, 
we  can  choose  our  friends."  It  is  the  dissimilarity  of  a 
friend  that  makes  him  our  complement  and  gives  him  ever 
the  attraction  of  surprise.  But  a  brother  is  so  like  us  that 
he  is  tiresome,  particularly  because  he  generally  wants 


194       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

what  we  want  at  about  the  same  time.  He  knows  so 
much  about  us  which  he  is  so  irritatingly  glad  to  tell.  He 
is  in  a  position  to  thwart  and  hinder  us  constantly  and 
is  so  close  to  us  always  that  the  opportunities  for  collision 
are  frequent.  Similarity  of  age  aggravates  the  similarity 
of  taste  and  coincident  desire.  'Difference  of  age  stimu- 
lates the  desire  of  the  younger  to  tease,  and  of  the  older 
to  bully.  Being  a  woman  is  no  special  protection  to  a 
sister  before  the  days  of  chivalry  come ;  in  fact,  her  woman- 
hood is  sometimes  an  aggravation  to  a  brother  if  he  thinks 
his  sister  is  trying  to  hide  herself  behind  her  sex  by  us- 
ing it  as  a  means  of  appeal  to  father  or  mother. 

Expressions  of  temper  by  children  in  the  home  have 
some  special  causes.  Ill  health  is  one.  The  ill-nourished, 
the  weak,  the  nervous,  the  constipated  child,  is  an  ill- 
tempered  child.  The  weather,  too,  which  has  defeated 
the  aspirations  of  many  an  adult  Christian,  affects  the 
dispositions  of  children.  Most  hot-tempered  children 
have  hot-tempered  parents.  There  are  even  parents  who 
think  that  to  "  put  themselves  into  a  temper  "  is  whole- 
some for  a  child,  because  it  makes  him  afraid  to  do  wrong. 
Such  fears  will  soon  wear  away,  but  even  more  serious 
results  will  last.  Being  teased  by  adults  who  visit  the 
home,  bachelor  uncles,  for  example,  is  a  not  infrequent 
cause  of  the  spoiled  disposition  of  a  child.  To  be  too 
frequently  and  unnecessarily  thwarted  will  keep  any 
youngster  in  a  state  of  irritation.  There  are  also  a  few 
children,  the  causes  of  whose  wrath  may  at  root  be  some 
of  those  just  mentioned,  who  give  way  to  paroxysms  of 
rage  in  which  they  resemble  what  we  are  told  of  persons 
possessed  with  the  devil,  during  which  shrieking,  rigidity 
or  throwing  about  of  the  body  are  constant.  Each  ex- 
treme case  of  this  sort  needs  special  study  and  attention. 

Quarrelling,  too,  comes  from  some  of  the  causes  just 
mentioned.  Its  immediate  occasion,  however,  is  gener- 
ally that  lack  of  clear  understanding  about  personal 
rights  and  possessions  which  drives  even  nations  to  com- 
bat. A  quarrel  is  sometimes  precipitated  by  the  unholy 
glee  of  one  party  at  being  held  up  by  a  parent  as  an  ex- 


CERTAIN   COMMON   FAULTS   OF   CHILDREN  195 

ample  for  the  emulation  of  the  other.  Underneath 
fraternal  quarrels  there  is  one  wholesome  tendency. 
Disagreeable  as  it  is  to  adults,  the  children  are  really 
sometimes  striving  about  justice,  and  often  it  is  better 
to  give  them  the  mental  exercise  of  arriving  at  it  them- 
selves than  to  come  in  as  a  dominating  and  often  ignorant 
arbitrator.  To  interfere  may  mean  that  we  encourage 
one  type  of  child  in  the  weak  habit  of  continually  demand- 
ing adult  sympathy  or  another  type  in  using  a  noisy  mode 
of  avoiding  fairness.  If  we  accept  the  apostle's  advice, 
so  to  separate  possessions  that  each  child  shall  look  only 
on  his  own  things  and  not  on  the  things  of  others,  we  shall 
use  good  sense.  Where  quarrels  get  chronic,  brothers 
had  better  be  separated  and  other  chums  brought  in. 
The  fact  that  two  brothers  almost  never  belong  to  the 
same  gang  is  significant. 

Teasing  does  not  in  the  early  years  mean  to  be  cruel. 
The  child  who  teases  is  simply  curious  to  see  how  the  one 
he  teases  will  act.  His  adventurous  spirit  wants  some- 
thing doing  and  he  can  always  start  something  in  this 
way.  It  is  an  early  expression  of  the  sense  of  humor.  In 
the  home  it  is  usually  the  younger  brother  or  sister  who 
teases,  and  this  is  natural  since  it  is  the  only  safe  means  of 
defence  for  the  weaker  against  the  aggressions  of  the 
stronger.  It  is  a  fault  that  is  somewhat  difficult  to  cor- 
rect because  it  can  be  indulged  without  overt  or  easily 
detected  acts.  A  glance  or  a  gesture  may  be  enough  to 
infuriate  the  victim.  Something  may  be  done  by  arming 
the  teased  so  that  he  will  be  nearly  impregnable.  But 
our  best  recourse  is  in  the  recognition  that  teasing  is  the 
danger  signal  of  idleness.  A  child  may  be  kept  so  busy 
that  he  won't  have  time  to  tease,  and  if  his  projects  sug- 
gest the  need  of  the  co-operation  or  advice  of  the  one  who 
was  erst  tormented  the  magnanimous .  assistance  of  the 
other  will  bring  them  pleasantly  together  again. 

Bullying  is  an  exaggerated,  cruel  form  of  teasing,  and 
involves  the  aggression  of  one  who  is  larger  upon  a  smaller. 
The  treatment  would  be  much  the  same,  and  if  the  bully 
can  be  led  to  see  his  need  of  the  younger  or  to  become  his 


196        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

champion  instead  of  his  tormentor,  we  put  him  in  a  posi- 
tion where  the  tendency  is  exactly  reversed.  To  develop 
the  clan  spirit  in  a  family  is  a  great  help  to  this  method. 

There  is  good  even  in  the  anger  instinct.  Guided  and 
held  in  check,  it  may  some  day  defend  the  youth  "  from 
anything  by  which  the  soul  is  shamed  or  insulted,"  the 
lad  against  anything  that  shall  make  him  seem  a  coward 
or  a  miscreant,  the  girl  against  any  attempt,  direct  or 
indirect,  upon  her  virtue.  Positive  anger  of  the  right 
sort  involves  the  capacity  of  moral  indignation  and  the 
longing  to  belong  to  the  chivalry  of  crusades  against 
social  injustice. 

Truancy 

Running  away  from  home  reminds  us  of  the  migratory 
ages  of  the  race.  Little  ones  start  off  as  soon  as  they  are 
big  enough  to  push  open  the  gate,  and  older  ones  manifest 
the  tendency  so  strongly  that  sometimes  it  seems  as  if  the 
history  of  childhood  consisted  in  the  constant  desire  to 
get  away  from  home.  It  starts  in  imaginativeness,  the 
feeling  that  some  of  the  things  that  have  been  told  about 
in  stories  must  be  around  the  corner  out  of  sight,  and  it  is 
assisted  by  that  curious  liking,  common  to  children  up  to 
adolescence,  the  liking  to  be  chased.  Sometimes  there 
may  be  a  goal,  the  wish  to  visit  a  playmate,  the  desire  to 
get  to  water  or  a  sandpile,  the  longing  for  a  forbidden 
pleasure.  Truancy  does  not  spring  entirely  from  the 
paucity  of  the  home  resources,  since  children  of  rich  par- 
ents like  to  leave  home  as  well  as  do  those  of  the  poor. 
During  the  common-school  years  there  is  measurable 
content  at  home.  The  boy  is  usually  satisfied  to  get  away 
to  the  ballground,  to  have  a  shack  in  the  woods,  to  slip 
out  to  the  motion-picture  show,  and  to  stay  out  all  night 
on  Hallowe'en.  But  the  impulse  takes  a  new  trend  during 
adolescence.  It  is  then  stimulated  by  books  of  adventure 
and  by  talking  with  travellers;  it  is  aggravated  by  dislike 
of  school  or  work;  it  is  made  pressing  by  the  spectacle  of 
the  uneventful,  sedentary  life  of  the  home.  But  beneath 
is  a  native  unrest.  "  Somewhere  else  "  is  magic.  The 
red  gods  call.     The  love  of  the  sense  of  motion  which 


CERTAIN   COMMON   FAULTS   OF   CHILDREN  197 

makes  scenic  railways  profitable  upholds  the  adventure. 
The  writer  has  talked  with  returned  prodigals  about  their 
exploits  and  has  been  surprised  to  find  that  while  in  every 
case  their  journeys  were  extensive  and  often  marked  by 
hardship  and  danger  they  had  not  gone  to  see  anything  in 
particular  nor  did  they  bring  back  definite  impressions 
from  their  journeys.  The  road,  rather  than  the  goal, 
beckons.  This  seems  very  similar  to  what  is  seen  later 
in  adults  who  get  the  habit  of  globe-trotting  with  no 
interests  in  art  or  humanity  or  who  break  up  their  homes 
and  move  from  one  boarding-house  to  another.  Perhaps 
the  domestic  and  the  nomadic  instincts  struggle  within  us 
all,  and  during  the  period  when  the  youth  is  on  the  quest 
for  himself  and  for  his  world  he  feels  impelled  to  go  forth 
literally  into  the  wrorld  to  find  it.  Girls  feel  the  same 
impulse,  but  because  they  live  a  life  of  regular  repression 
satisfy  it  by  reading,  by  day-dreaming  or  at  the  most  by 
engaging  in  a  clandestine  correspondence  or  acquaint- 
ance. 

Probably  we  cannot  and  ought  not  utterly  to  crush  this 
impulse.  A  more  generously  hospitable  home  life,  the 
suiting  of  the  school  more  closely  to  the  new  interests  of 
adolescence,  endeavors  to  find  work  that  shall  embody 
some  element  of  pioneering,  adventure  or  responsibility, 
will  do  something  to  guide  the  tendency.  A  father  who 
has  kept  up  outdoor  habits  and  who  takes  his  son  camp- 
ing, hunting  and  travelling  will  pretty  nearly  control  it. 
A  real  wander jahr,  an  ancient  and  recognized  element  in 
education,  may  be  essential  to  some  young  people. 

Summary 
The  condensed  discussions  of  this  chapter  deal  with 
matters  that  are  important  enough  for  prolonged  thought. 
Two  essential  facts  have  been  in  the  writer's  mind,  which 
he  would  leave  in  the  reader's.  Troublesome  traits  of 
childhood  arise  out  of  natural  instincts,  which  have  been 
misunderstood,  neglected  or  mishandled;  they  always 
imply  something  important  and  precious  for  the  child's 
future.     These  traits  not  only  involve  the  child's  individu- 


198       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

ality,  but  they  grow  with  the  growth  of  his  social  relation- 
ships in  the  home  and  elsewhere;  therefore,  we  must  deal 
with  them  socially  as  well  as  individually  and  in  the 
consciousness  that  right  permanent  social  relationships 
will  depend  upon  such  wise  dealings. 

One  common  method  of  approach  is  to  be  ours,  in  meet- 
ing all  these  diverse  tendencies:  The  way  to  prevent  in- 
jurious acts  is  to  open  the  way  to  non-injurious  acts  that 
bring  the  same  sort  of  pleasure. 

Reading  References 

The  fifth  chapter  of  G.  Stanley  Hall's  "  Adolescence  "  is  devoted  to 
"Juvenile  Faults,"  which  are  studied,  of  course,  from  the  genetic  stand- 
point, with  a  wealth  of  interesting  detail  and  statistical  material.  In 
Swift's  "  Mind  in  the  Making  "  the  second  chapter  is  on  "  Criminal  Ten- 
dencies of  Boyhood,"  which  are  studied  in  their  source  and  as  to  their 
peril.  Chapter  V  of  Abbott's  "  On  the  Training  of  Parents  "  treats  quar- 
relling sensibly.  The  writer,  in  a  monograph  entitled  "  Truth- Telling  and 
.the  Problem  of  Children's  Lies,"  has  written  at  length  concerning  this 
subject.  There  is  a  helpful  chapter  in  Mrs.  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher's 
"  Mothers  and  Children." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
THE  HOME  TRAINING  OF  SCHOOL  CHILDREN 

In  a  previous  chapter  (X:  "  The  Problems  of  Obedi- 
ence ")  we  discussed  the  home  training  of  children  under 
school  age.  We  emphasized  the  fact  that,  for  their  own 
protection,  obedience  was  the  cardinal  virtue,  inculcated 
by  the  parent  until  the  child  should  be  old  enough  to  be 
wise  and  strong  for  self -obedience.  We  urged  that  even 
during  that  early  period  the  child  should  be  given  in  his 
obediences  some  opportunities  to  use  the  power  of  choice, 
so  as  to  begin  to  prepare  to  take  charge  of  his  own  life. 

During  the  school  years  before  adolescence  this  training 
continues.  This  whole  era  from  six  to  twelve  is  one  of 
transition  from  control  by  the  parent  to  self-control. 
In  familiar  situations  the  child  more  and  more  takes  the 
initiative  and  acts  according  to  laws  which  have  already 
been  laid  down.  In  new  situations  the  parent  suggests, 
guides  and  sometimes  commands,  until  these  in  turn  be- 
come familiar  situations  and  the  child  knows  how  to  act. 

The  Attitude  of  the  Child 
We  need  to  be  reminded  of  a  few  facts  concerning  the 
child's  attitude  to  law  and  right  before  we  go  further  into 
this  important  subject. 

We  are  to  expect  during  this  period  no  very  deep  sorrow 
for  wrong-doing,  little  shame,  almost  no  remorse.  The 
average  child  is  hurt  by  the  disapproval  of  his  parent  and 
is  chagrined  when  he  is  found  out  in  disobedience.  He 
regrets  the  penalties  that  are  visited  upon  him  and  he  is 
genuinely  grieved  when  he  gives  pain  to  one  he  loves. 
But  since  it  is  believed  that  before  the  age  of  ten  the  child 
responds  to  personal  commands  rather  than  to  general 
laws,  it  seems  fair  to  say  that  his  conscience  is  largely  in 
the  custody  of  his  elders  and  that  since  he  does  not  feel 

199 


200       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

deep  personal  responsibility  he  cannot  feel  much  personal 
penitence.  If  he  has  had  suitable  training  the  child 
conies  to  recognize  the  authority  of  law  and  to  shape  for 
himself,  with  the  assistance  of  his  playmates  and  his 
parents,  a  code  whose  infraction  he  regards  with  increas- 
ing regret  and  discomfort. 

This  is  very  instructive.  It  shows  us  that  many  a  child 
probably  is  giving  quite  a  different  name  to  his  offences1 
than  we  give.  What  is  to  us  naughtiness,  untruthfulness, 
depravity,  may  seem  to  him  natural  impulse,  humor,  hav- 
ing a  good  time.  He  may  not  feel  seriously  uneasy  when 
he  disobeys  unless  he  is  found  out  or  very  directly  repri- 
manded. We  are  more  or  less  constantly  conscientious, 
but  he  may  have  days  which  he  is  fond  of  believing  God 
doesn't  count  and  which  he  hopes  He  does  not  see. 

Even  in  this  respect  children  differ.  Some  respond 
with  early  docility  to  habit-training  and  accept  as  their 
own  the  ideas  and  customs  of  their  elders.  Others  show  a 
marked  independence  of  thought  and  action  all  through 
their  school  days.  Some  children  display  a  sensitive  and 
well-nigh  morbid  conscientiousness;  others  seem  rather  to 
reflect  the  public  sentiment  immediately  about  them. 
They  are  perhaps  alike  in  this,  that  few  have  yet  made  a 
complete  and  final  transition  from  imitativeness  to  entire 
self-discipline. 

We  have  to  carry  children  through  this  transition  from 
docility  to  self-command  as  steadily  and  completely  as 
possible,  giving  them  as  fast  as  is  natural  responsibility 
with  all  its  consequences  and  materials  of  experience  out 
of  which  to  build  a  moral  code. 

Methods  of  Government 

The  methods  which  are  to  be  suggested  are  those  which 
are  believed  to  be  of  the  best  help  in  making  this  transi- 
tion. 

Securing  Insight.  This  is  the  most  important  of  all. 
We  need  always  to  understand  the  child  and  to  know 
just  what  we  are  about.  Mrs.  Annie  Winsor  Allen  urges 
that  a  child  should  every  day  be  "  freshly  noticed,"  as 


HOME  TRAINING   OF  SCHOOL   CHILDREN    201 

if  we  did  not  know  him  at  all  before  and  "  never  treated 
as  if  he  were  in  last  month's  state  of  mind."  This  happily 
suggests  that  perpetual  listening  at  the  door  of  the  child's 
life  which  must  be  done  if  we  are  at  all  to  know  what  is 
going  on  inside. 

The  question  "  Why  did  he  do  it?"  should  be  ever  trem- 
bling at  a  parent's  lips.  When  on  the  way  to  settle  a  dis- 
pute or  to  give  a  punishment  it  would  always  be  well  to 
ask  it  aloud.  The  answer,  "  Fatigue,"  is  one  that  should 
always  be  considered.  Those  days  that  the  child  would 
have  God  forget  are  the  ones  when  he  arose  tired  and 
unrefreshed  from  sleep,  when  the  weather  was  humid, 
when  there  were  indications  of  the  coming  on  of  a  childish 
malady.  The  mother  who  tried  always  to  be  gentle  in 
command  after  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  had  insight 
as  to  the  limits  of  her  children's  vigor.  If  a  mother 
would  begin  the  job  of  trying  to  get  her  boy  to  gather  up 
his  playthings  before  he  is  quite  exhausted  by  play  she 
would  have  better  success.  The  mother  of  a  baby  is 
skilful  in  interpreting  his  every  cry,  but  when  the  child 
grows  older  she  is  not  always  as  watchful.  But  the  school- 
girl cries  for  as  many  different  reasons  as  does  a  baby. 
She  may  be  crying  for  herself  or  for  her  mother,  for  grief 
or  to  get  her  own  way,  in  distress  or  anger  or  fear  or  bodily 
discomfort.  A  boy  may  fight  for  as  many  different  rea- 
sons as  a  girl  may  cry,  and  some  of  them  are  justifiable. 
But  the  immediate  question  always  is,  "  Why?  " 

Having  Foresight.  We  are  too  extemporaneous  in  our 
home  training.  Why  should  we  daily  be  caught  unawares 
by  the  old  besetting  difficulty?  The  boy  has  started 
the  habit  of  getting  away  from  the  house  right  after 
school  and  going,  nobody  knows  where.  Why  is  there 
not  a  new  plaything  or  a  task  or  a  lunch  always  ready  for 
him  as  soon  as  he  gets  home?  Here  is  a  child  whose 
obstinacy  already  gives  concern,  though  it  may  imply  the 
presence  of  a  good  strong  will,  which  is  evidently  aroused 
because  people  thoughtlessly  spring  things  on  him.  Why 
shouldn't  he  have  some  quiet  forewarning  of  what  is  to 
come  ?     Why  should  there  not  be  the  legitimate  use  of  the 


202       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

suggestion  that  mother  expects  that  when  the  time  comes 
he  will  be  able  and  willing  to  perform  it  cheerfully  ?  Why 
should  he  not  be  taken  into  confidence  as  to  why  the 
proposed  action  is  necessary  or  wise  ?  In  short,  why  should 
he  not  be  given  time  to  see  the  situation  himself,  to  make 
up  his  mind  and  to  enlist  his  will  on  the  right  side  ?  This 
kind  of  foresight  is  usually  quite  feasible. 

There  is  even  a  better  kind  of  foresight.  It  refers  not 
to  some  particular  action,  but  it  is  exerted  in  reference  to 
the  entire  career  of  the  child.  Ennis  Richmond  calls  it 
"  appealing  to  the  advance  nature  "  of  the  child.  It 
involves  treating  children  as  if  they  were  a  little  older 
than  they  are,  implying  that  they  have  a  little  more  sense 
than  is  visible;  it  suggests  always  a  loving  expectancy. 
Here  foresight  runs  into  trust. 

The  Method  of  Comradeship.  We  can  hardly  exercise 
either  insight  or  foresight  if  we  do  not  keep  alongside. 
It  might  well  be  wished  that  fathers,  for  example,  would 
purchase  and  read  some  of  the  excellent  books  on  child 
study  that  are  now  available,  but  many  a  father  would 
do  better  to  put  the  same  amount  of  money  into  a  baseball 
bat  and  mitt  and  let  his  son  throw  curves  at  him  in  the 
back  yard.  All  through  this  period  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  beginning  at  about  six  when  the  child  starts  to 
school  and  increasingly  at  about  ten  when  the  "  gang  " 
comes  into  being,  the  influence  of  adults  tends  to  be  sup- 
planted by  that  of  children  of  the  child's  own  age.  But 
throughout  this  time  and  even  all  through  adolescence 
there  is  a  potent,  though  secretive,  sort  of  hero-worship  of 
admired  adults,  and  the  parent  may  easily  be  such  a  hero 
if  he  qualifies  early. 

We  cannot  go  into  this  important  subject  more  fully  at 
this  time,  but  there  are  several  opportunities  that  are  so 
obvious  and  so  important  that  they  deserve  the  emphasis 
of  being  tabulated  for  further  thought  and  discussion. 

They  are: 
Play. 
Work. 


HOME   TRAINING   OF   SCHOOL   CHILDREN    203 

Table  talk. 

Bedtime. 

A  home  night  (a  regular  family  evening  at  home  at 
least  weekly). 

Sunday  afternoon  with  father. 

Home  hospitality  for  the  "  gang." 

The  team  organization  of  the  home  for  self-government 
is  a  very  happy  and  useful  device.  It  ma}'  be  based  upon 
some  sort  of  a  family  "  covenant  "  or  constitution  which 
all  may  sign;  it  may  have  its  law-making  and  law-enfor- 
cing sessions;  its  experiments  in  individual  initiative;  its 
self -corrective  instruments;  its  judicial  decisions.  Such 
an  organization,  of  course,  will  have  other  activities,  and 
will  function  in  home  evenings,  festivals  and  outings  as 
well  as  in  disciplinary  occasions. 

The  Method  of  Suggestion.  We  have  already  spoken 
of  the  desirability  of  breaking  things  gently  to  a  child. 
A  wise  parent  may  prepare  the  way  for  willing  compliance, 
sometimes  with  a  gentle  plea,  sometimes  with  a  great 
show  of  secrecy,  always  with  a  loving  expectancy.  But 
suggestion  may  be  used  not  merely  for  getting  hard  or 
disagreeable  things  done.  It  is  useful  in  keeping  up  a  lot 
of  desirable  and  delightful  occupations.  Children  do  not 
of  themselves  have  a  very  great  stock  of  ideas;  they  are 
not  always  very  resourceful.  One  reason  why  an  adult 
is  so  welcome  in  a  "  gang  ' '  is  because  he  can  think  of  more 
things  to  do  and  can  do  them  better  than  can  any  of  the 
boys.  The  parent  who  puts  some  brains  into  his  chil- 
dren's home  hours  is  not  only  governing  them,  but  is  con- 
tributing greatly  to  their  education. 

The  Method  of  Explanation.  It  is  so  pleasant  to  be 
pope  and  perhaps  for  a  while  so  necessary  in  the  home 
that  it  is  hard  to  know  when  to  lay  off  the  tiara.  To  some 
parents  explanations  appear  dangerous  as  being  possible 
concessions  to  disobedience.  But  they  certainly  make 
obedience  heartier,  and  an  instructed  child  who  knows 
not  only  what  is  wanted,  but  why,  ought  to  be  able  to  do 
it  better  than  a  stupid  one  who  is  merely  docile.  Some- 
time the  child  will  need  forethought  and  intelligence  in 


204       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

his  actions;  when  shall  he  begin?  Of  course,  it  ought  not 
to  be  necessary  to  explain  to  a  child  why  he  should  do  what 
he  has  been  in  the  habit  of  doing.  When  a  boy  asks  why 
he  must  bring  up  the  coal,  what  he  needs  is  not  explana- 
tion. If,  however,  a  new  course  of  action  is  proposed  the 
child  may  have,  beforehand  if  there  is  time,  afterward  if 
there  is  not,  the  reason  for  what  is  to  be  done.  Our 
delightful  and  keen-minded  spinster,  Miss  Repplier,  who 
writes  so  sensibly  about  children,  thinks  implicit  obedience 
is  better,  and  she  cites  the  child  who  is  about  to  run 
ignorantly  over  a  precipice  and  whose  life  may  be  saved 
only  by  his  own  instinctive  obedience  to  the  unexplained 
shriek  of  his  mother  to  stop  right  where  he  is.  To  this 
the  reply  may  be  made  that  precipices  are  somewhat 
negligible  and  that  the  child  of  sense  who  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  getting  explanations  from  his  mother  would 
respond  to  the  shriek  anyhow,  even  if  he  insisted  on  return- 
ing at  once  to  find  out  what  was  the  matter.  This  gives 
us  the  opportunity  to  say  that  the  best  use  of  explanations 
sometimes  is  not  as  an  inducement  to  obedience  before 
the  act  but  as  a  clearing-up  process  afterward.  A  pleas- 
ant illustration  to  a  boy  of  the  way  his  uncouthness  or 
ungraciousness  appeared  to  his  mother,  illustrated  by 
imitation  perhaps,  would  be  gratefully  received  by  him 
when  rebuke  or  sarcasm  would  only  irritate  him. 

Closely  allied  with  explanation  is  the  Method  of  Persua- 
sion, the  appeal  to  good  sense  or  affection  or  pride.  It 
has  to  be  used  with  caution.  The  plea  of  "  mother's 
headache  "  may  soon  wear  out.  Praise,  thoughtfully  and 
frequently  administered,  but  never  to  the  extreme  of  in- 
sincerity or  flattery,  has  magical  results. 

The  Method  of  Habituation.  The  years  between  six 
and  twelve  are  known  to  be  those  of  remarkable  impressi- 
bility and  of  strength  of  memory.  It  is  believed  that  it 
is  easier  then  than  ever  again  to  make  correct  manners 
and  usages  automatic.  Regularity  is  one  of  life's  best 
time-savers,  and  we  probably  never  realize  how  great  a 
realm  of  good  behavior  may  be  included  within  the  sphere 
of  habit.     We  know  that  habits  of  private  devotion,  for 


HOME  TRAINING  OF  SCHOOL  CHILDREN    205 

example,  induced  during  these  years,  are  never  afterward 
easily  forsworn.  The  whole  secret  is  in  beginning  soon 
enough.  Habit-training  ought  to  begin  in  the  cradle;  the 
best  nurses  tell  us,  on  the  first  day  of  the  child's  life. 
Successful  government  through  habituation  during  the 
school  days  is  not  easy  unless  it  began  long  before  school 
days. 

Drill  is  made  easier  because  children  have,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  respect  for  personal  authority.  They  respond 
during  these  years  to  devices  based  upon  this  fact.  They 
will  learn  to  obey  promptly  by  playing  "  soldier  ";  they 
will  enjoy  signing  and  re-reading  a  "  family  compact," 
which  is  framed  and  kept  always  in  sight ;  they  will  accept 
punishment  by  imprisonment  cheerfully  when  they  have 
been  told  that  they  are  "  sailors  in  irons  "  and  that  they 
are  getting  what  is  appropriate  in  case  of  mutiny. 

Methods  of  Punishment.  No  child  is  so  good  by  nature 
that  he  does  not  need  negative  reward  once  in  a  while. 
The  principles  and  purposes  of  punishment  were  stated  in 
Chapter  X  and  should  be  reviewed  at  this  time.  One  or 
two  further  words  need  to  be  said  about  this  rigorous  kind 
of  teaching. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  more  difficult  to  administer  pun- 
ishment wisely  and  successfully  than  it  was  in  infancy. 
The  child  is  less  docile,  is  more  self-willed,  has  more  re- 
sisting power,  errs  from  a  greater  variety  of  motives. 
We  have  said  that  the  purpose  of  punishment  is  not  to 
stop  a  course  of  conduct  so  much  as  to  change  a  course 
of  desire.  This  suggests  both  our  difficulty  and  our  oppor- 
tunity. Desires  are  harder  to  reach  than  acts,  but  if 
they  are  reached  they  control  conduct. 

Evidently  corporal  punishment  would  not  often  be 
indicated  during  this  period.  It  seldom  creates  a  love  for 
virtue.  It  does  not  change  a  course  of  desire,  except  in  a 
weak-willed  child,  in  whom  it  creates  the  motive  of  ab- 
jectly following  the  desires  of  another  instead  of  creating 
noble  desires  of  his  own.  It  is  impossible  to  indicate 
lines  of  punishment  for  all  the  various  offences  of  child- 
hood.    Some  general  suggestions  may  be  made,   based 


206       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

upon  the  thought  that  all  punishment  should  be  intended 
as  a  means  of  will-training. 

1.  Punishments  should  not  be  given  without  warning 
or  for  offences  that  have  never  been  prohibited.  After 
clearly  understood  warning  they  should  be  given  as 
promised. 

2.  When  a  punishment  is  to  be  given,  time  should  be 
allowed  to  make  it  fully  effective.  The  parent  often  needs 
time  to  control  his  temper,  to  get  all  the  facts,  to  decide 
just  what  is  best  to  do.  Such  delay  is  more  impressive 
than  sudden,  thoughtless  penalties.  The  child  should 
usually  be  given  time  to  state  his  defence  if  he  has  any,  to 
think  over  his  failing  so  as  to  be  able  to  give  the  right  name 
to  his  conduct  and  to  get  the  best  out  of  the  whole  trans- 
action. 

3.  If  possible,  the  child  should  co-operate  in  his  own 
punishment.  Sometimes  he  can  be  led  fairly  and  to  a 
good  degree  impartially  to  see  and  to  say  what  he  had 
better  do,  in  the  way  of  restitution,  of  apology,  of  penance. 

4.  With  the  possible  exception  of  a  case  where  the 
offence  has  been  against  a  group  or  a  gang,  where  others 
may  have  something  to  say  about  the  matter,  reproofs, 
punishments  and  the  discussion  of  punishments  should 
always  be  strictly  private. 

Training  Individuality.  The  time  of  punishment  is 
not  the  best  or  the  only  time  to  correct  faults.  The 
positive  method  is  better  than  the  negative  one.  The 
best  method  of  will  training  is  to  give  the  child  frequent 
opportunities  of  using  his  good  sense.  The  following 
opportunities  will  suggest  themselves  as  deserving  of 
careful  consideration  and  working  out. 

1.  Encourage  initiative  in  every  possible  way.  When 
a  child  suggests  a  course  of  conduct  that  is  novel,  but 
apparently  harmless,  let  him  try  it.  Some  children 
are  made  obstinate  and  sulky  by  parents  whose  instinct 
seems  to  be  to  say  "  No  "  whenever  the  child  suggests 
anything  new.  They  think  they  are  cautious;  they  are 
really  too  lazy  to  follow  up  the  child's  originality  and  find 
out  what  he  is  up  to.     If  the  child  wants  to  engage  in 


HOME  TRAINING  OF  SCHOOL  CHILDREN      207 

some  small  commercial  transaction,  encourage  him.  Go 
even  further.  Give  him  an  allowance  that  increases  as 
fast  as  it  is  safe  and  make  him  more  and  more  responsible 
for  spending  it.  Embark  with  him  as  a  partner  in  his 
new  business.  Hunt  up  hard  and  challenging  things  for 
him  to  try. 

2.  Let  him  make  as  many  of  his  own  decisions  as  pos- 
sible, giving  him  plenty  of  time  to  do  so  and  all  the  help 
he  asks  for,  and  then  have  him  stick  to  them.  If  a  red- 
headed child  insists  after  due  deliberation  on  buying  him- 
self a  crimson  necktie,  let  him  do  it,  and  then  let  him  wear 
it  out. 

3.  Don't  say  "  Don't  "  to  him,  but  train  him  to  learn 
to  say  "  Don't  "  to  himself. 

4.  Strengthen  and  glorify  his  positive  choices  in  every 
possible  way,  by  generous  concessions,  by  mutual  helpful- 
ness, by  praise,  by  larger  opportunities. 

5.  When  his  choices  lead  to  unfortunate  results,  do  not 
chide  him.  Treat  him  as  one  who  has  made  an  honest 
experiment.  Talk  it  over,  and  point  out  why  it  didn't 
work. 

Reading  References 

So  many  good  books  exist  upon  the  topic  of  home  training  that  it  is 
hard  to  know  which  to  recommend.  Among  those  of  specific  value  for 
the  themes  of  this  chapter  are  these:  Griggs'  "  Moral  Education  "  has  an 
excellent  and  thorough  discussion  of  discipline,  pp.  129-181.  In  Paget's 
"  The  New  Parents'  Assistant,"  pp.  29-40,  ie  a  reminder  of  the  real  pur- 
pose and  the  limitations  of  parental  authority,  and  on  pages  71-82  he 
sensibly  discusses  discipline.  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher  in  her  stimulating 
"  Mothers  and  Children,"  pp.  99-170,  goes  carefully  into  the  problems  of 
obedience. 

Other  books,  to  which  specific  page-references  would  not  do  justice,  are: 

Jacob  Abbott's  "  Gentle  Measures  in  the  Training  of  the  Young." 

Ernest  Hamlin  Abbott's  "  On  the  Training  of  Parents." 

William  A.  McKeever's  "  Training  the  Boy." 

Mary  Wood-Allen's  "  Making  the  Best  of  Our  Children." 

Annie  Winsor  Allen's  "  Home,  School  and  Vacation." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

COMPANIONSHIP 

The  Way  the  Social  Impulse  Develops 

In  order  to  understand  the  importance  and  possible 
value  of  the  social  impulse  it  is  necessary  briefly  to  trace 
the  way  of  its  usual  development.  Kirkpatrick's  names 
for  the  periods  of  childhood  are  based  upon  recognition  of 
this  impulse,  and  they  are  used  here,  with  some  words  of 
description. 

The  Pre-Social  Stage.  This  includes  only  about  half 
of  the  first  year  of  life.  During  this  period  the  baby  is 
very  busy  learning  the  parts  of  his  body  and  gathering 
a  multitude  of  sense  impressions,  and  he  does  not  care 
much  about  people  except  that  they  shall  make  him 
comfortable.  By  the  end  of  the  first  half  of  the  year  he 
has  begun  to  sit  up  and  in  a  short  time  to  creep  and 
thus,  through  locomotion,  to  enlarge  his  objective  world. 
By  this  time  he  welcomes  persons  as  a  part  of  this  world 
and  is  pleased  with  the  objects  which  they  bring  to  his 
attention  and  the  endeavors  which  they  make  to  amuse 
him.     This  leads  to  — 

The  Imitating  and  Socializing  Stage,  which  culminates 
at  the  end  of  the  third  year.  As  soon  as  the  child  has 
seen  an  act  he  tries  now  to  imitate  it,  and  after  his  imagina- 
tion develops,  during  the  second  year,  he  not  only  imi- 
tates the  act,  but  uses  it  dramatically.  He  shows  signs 
of  real  affection,  particularly  to  adults,  with  whom  he 
gets  along  better  than  with  children. 

The  Individualizing  Stage  comes  next  and  lasts  until 
about  the  end  of  the  sixth  year.  The  increasing  self- 
consciousness  which  is  now  his  makes  the  child  not  only 
assertive  and  perhaps  rebellious  to  his  parents,  but  inde- 
pendent in  his  relations  with  his  first  playmates.  We  now 
see  the  amusing  situation  that  at  a  party  a  group  of  little 

208 


COMPANIONSHIP  209 

children  may  enter  a  nursery  and  each  one  seize  a  toy  and 
play  with  it  in  as  complete  and  happy  isolation  as  if  he 
were  quite  alone.  Kindergarten  begins  during  this  period 
and  the  child  is  socialized  a  little  by  the  influence  of  his 
teachers  and  by  imitation  of  his  many  new  companions. 
This  brings  him  to  — 

The  Stage  of  Competitive  Socializing,  which  culminates 
just  before  puberty.  These  are  the  years  of  individual- 
istic contests  in  almost  every  field  of  endeavor.  Imita- 
tion distinctly  yields  to  competition.  The  child,  however, 
has  been  smoothed  off  somewhat  by  compulsory  social 
usages  and  does  not  go  to  the  extremes  of  pugnacity  which 
would  be  natural  if  he  did  not  come  under  the  influence  of 
the  school  and  the  home.  During  the  last  two  years  of 
this  period  "  gangs  "  arise  among  boys,  chiefly  for  con- 
venience in  playing  the  group  competitive  games,  for  un- 
dertaking and  protecting  each  other  in  adventures  that 
would  not  be  possible  alone,  and  for  neighborhood  self- 
defence  against  other  encroaching  "  gangs." 

Early  adolescence,  up  to  eighteen,  is  called  by  Kirk- 
patrick  the  Transitional  Stage,  and  perhaps  there  is  no 
better  name  for  the  eventful  years  in  which  the  boy  be- 
comes a  man  and  the  girl  a  woman.  The  social  impulse 
is  now  at  its  height  and  involves  an  interesting  group  of 
facts.  The  one  that  is  most  significant  is  that  relations 
that  were  somewhat  accidental,  external  and  impersonal 
now  change  into  those  that  mean  real  personal  friendships. 

Differences  Between  Boys  and  Girls  in  Their 
Social  Instincts 
Among  boys  the  social  impulse  is  peculiarly  well  marked. 
It  has  been  said  that  while  one  man  out  of  ten  joins  a 
church  and  one  man  out  of  five  a  lodge,  three  boys  out  of 
every  four  go  into  a  "  gang."  Counting  out  those  who 
have  no  such  opportunity  and  the  few  who  are  by  nature 
unsocial,  we  find  the  "  gang  "  phenomenon  practically 
universal  among  boys  from  ten  to  sixteen  or  seventeen. 
This  must  mean  that  a  large  part  of  a  boy's  social  training 
during   these   years   comes   from   such   self-formed   and 


210       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

self-conducted  organizations.  Puffer  divides  the  activi- 
ties of  such  groups  as  follows: 

Expressions  of  the  primitive  impulses. 

Expressions  of  the  predatory  impulses. 

Expressions  of  tribal  impulses. 

Group  games. 

A  statistical  study  from  the  largest  questionnaire  that 
has  been  made  of  the  "  gang  "  divides  these  activities  in 
the  following  proportions: 

Athletic  games 61% 

Predatory,   fighting  and  building  activities 17% 

Industrial  activities 82% 

Total      associations     involving     lively     physical 

activity 862% 

Total    associations    for    social,    secret    and    self- 
improvement  purposes 13§  % 

These  facts  suggest  that  boys  organize  chiefly  in  the 
summer-time,  for  activities  that  represent  those  of  some- 
what primitive  man  and  that  they  meet  usually  out  of 
doors  and  away  from  home. 

Girls  organize  to  nearly  as  great  a  per  cent  as  do  boys, 
but  for  quite  different  purposes.  The  same  study  yielded 
the  following  results: 

Physical  activities 10% 

Three  to  five  times  as  many  societies  for  social, 
secret  and  self -improvement  purposes. 
Girls  group  themselves  more  often  in  the  winter-time, 
for  sociability,  self-improvement  and  service,  and  indoors 
and  at  home.  Puffer  refuses  the  name  "  gang  "  to  girls' 
social  groupings,  and  prefers  "sets."  He  says,  ''Sets 
and  gangs  are  quite  different  institutions.  The  set  is  ex- 
clusive, undemocratic.  It  has  no  organization,  leaders, 
history.  The  set  snubs  its  rivals;  the  gang  fights  them. 
The  members  of  a  set  also  snub  one  another,  quarrel  and 
backbite.  There  is  none  of  the  deep-seated,  instinctive 
loyalty  which  the  members  of  a  gang  have  for  each  other." 
Puffer  also  notes  the  fact  that  boys  have  a  passion  for 
games,    while    girls    will   play    them   when    taught.     He 


COMPANIONSHIP  211 

thinks  these  distinct  activities  not  only  prophetic  of  the 
separate  f inactions  of  men  and  of  women,  but  also  definitely- 
preparatory  for  them. 

As  soon  as  boys  and  girls  begin  to  regard  themselves  as 
having  come  to  maturity,  they  begin  to  imitate  adults  in 
their  social  groups.  They  organize  in  high  school  fra- 
ternities, imitative  of  those  conducted  by  college  students. 
They  freely  join  societies  of  an  altruistic  purpose  organ- 
ized by  adults  for  their  benefit  and,  as  soon  as  they  are 
eligible,  the  lodges  to  which  their  parents  belong.  At 
least  fifty  per  cent  more  girls  are  found  in  church  organ- 
izations than  boys,  and  a  reverse  proportion  of  young  men 
in  secret  lodges. 

The  coming  to  consciousness  of  the  sex  instinct  pro- 
duces significant  changes  in  the  "  gang  "  impulse.  On 
the  whole,  the  former  is  disintegrating  to  the  latter. 
There  is  a  curious  pairing-off  tendency,  not  only  of  boys 
with  girls,  but  of  boys  with  boys  and  of  girls  with  girls, 
for  mutual  confidences  and  co-operation  in  the  early 
attempts  at  courtship.  This  prophesies  the  more  inti- 
mate attachments  of  mature  years. 

Other  Important  Facts 
Several  miscellaneous  facts  are  of  importance: 

1 .  The  boy  from  the  poor  home  is  more  likely  to  belong 
to  a  gang,  because  he  cannot  comfortably  satisfy  the 
social  instinct  in  his  home.  Such  a  boy  is  also  more 
endangered  morally. 

2.  The  gang  is  usually  quite  subject  to  its  leader,  who 
may  be  of  its  own  age  or  an  adult.  It  imitates  him 
closely.  In  many  ways  he  resembles  in  his  influence  and 
power  the  chieftain  of  a  clan.  He  is  a  fair  spokesman  and 
expression  of  the  group  ideals. 

3.  A  gang  tends  to  codify  the  morality  of  its  individual 
members,  who  are  for  a  time  at  least  more  powerfully 
influenced  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  group  than  by  any 
other  force.  It  is  almost  impossible  during  this  stage  to 
produce  a  moral  impression  that  is  not  a  group  impression. 

4.  The  fact  that  the  heyday  of  the  gang  is  coincident 


212       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

with  the  storm  and  stress  of  adolescence  and  with  years 
that  are  often  anti-domestic  in  feeling,  suggests  the  pos- 
sible peril  of  lawless  and  thoughtless  conduct  from  the 
unregulated  group.  These  perils  are  increased  by  the 
fact  that  the  gang  dares  do  together  what  no  individual 
would  do  alone. 

5.  The  frequent  tendencies  of  brothers  to  belong  to 
different  groups  and  so  to  play  more  freely  with  other 
boys  than  with  each  other  gives  parents  an  unexpected 
and  puzzling  problem. 

6.  All  these  associations  help  to  create  a  larger  self, 
and  are  important  in  relation  to  the  future  civic  and  social 
relations  of  young  people. 

7.  The  power  of  being  a  leader  has  a  remarkable  influ- 
ence upon  the  boy  who  can  gain  and  maintain  that  posi- 
tion. According  to  Swift,  the  leaders  excel  the  other  boys 
in  truthfulness,  perseverance,  generosity,  bravery,  reason, 
shrewdness  and  independence.  "  The  Leader  is  free  from 
many  of  the  limitations  of  his  followers.  They  have  their 
reputations  to  make.  He  has  made  his.  The  very  fact 
of  his  leadership  and  his  feeling  that  he  is  the  protector 
of  his  followers  gives  him  a  social  self  that  is  in  advance  of 
that  of  his  subordinates." 

Some  Helpful  Suggestions 
A  number  of  suggestions  come  from  these  facts: 

1.  The  home  must  recognize  and  prepare  for  early 
expressions  of  this  social  instinct.  No  household  can  live 
unto  itself.  To  forbid  a  child  to  play  with  his  neighbors 
is  to  make  of  him  an  unpopular  snob.  To  keep  the 
neighbors'  children  away  is  to  deprive  one's  own  children 
of  any  natural  comrades.  The  home  must  be  free,  though 
careful,  with  its  hospitality,  each  household  must  take  an 
interest  in  the  children  of  others  and  there  is  room  for 
sensible,  united  action  -of  groups  of  families  in  supervising 
the  social  relations  of  their  children. 

2.  The  schoolroom  is  often  too  much  a  place  where 
children,  in  sight  of  each  other,  are  working  in  solitary 
confinement.     There    are    unreached    educational    possi- 


COMPANIONSHIP  213 

bilities  in  conjunct  study  and  experiment  and  in  utilizing 
the  natural  child-leaders. 

3.  The  church  should  recognize  the  normal  social  likings 
of  its  young  people,  especially  in  its  organized  Sunday- 
school  classes  and  by  keeping  boys  and  girls  separate  in 
their  social  organizations  until  they  are  about  sixteen. 

4.  So  potent  and  so  far-reaching  are  the  influences  of 
"  gangs  "  and  "  sets  "  that  there  can  be  no  more  im- 
portant or  challenging  social  and  moral  opportunity  for 
men  and  women  of  ability  and  charm  than  to  become 
leaders  of  such  groups,  and  help  transform  their  ideals 
and  lead  them  out  into  wholesome  social  co-operation. 
And  parents  should  be  above  all  others  pre-eminently 
equipped  for  this  high  calling. 

5.  No  religious  work  among  adolescents  should  be 
undertaken  without  serious  recognition  of  the  psychology 
of  the  group. 

Reading  References 

The  first  statistical  study  of  the  gang  impulse  was  made  some  years 
ago  by  Sheldon  in  his  "  Institutional  Activities  of  American  Children." 
Forbush  in  his  "  The  Boy  Problem  "  called  attention  to  the  meaning  of 
these  facts  to  social  and  religious  effort.  Pages  66-129  offered  a  critique 
of  organizations  intended  for  boys  originated  by  adults.  On  pages  130-192 
constructive  suggestions  were  given.  Puffer  in  his  book  "  The  Boy  and 
His  Gang  "  gave  fresh  figures  and  a  study  drawn  from  some  very  real 
experiences.  His  inferences  are  given,  beginning  on  page  124.  Swift 
in  his  "  Youth  and  the  Race,"  246-287,  goes  over  the  ground  again,  with 
the  suggestive  chapter  title,  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Gang;  an  Educational 
Asset." 


CHAPTER   XXIX 
AMUSEMENTS  AND   SOCIAL   LIFE 

What  has  been  said  of  both  the  individual  and  social 
development  of  the  young  prepares  us  to  accept  the  follow- 
ing brief  statement  of  the  particular  recreational  interests 
of  children  and  young  people. 

1.  Children  up  to  school  age  play  alone  or  in  company 
with  adults  and  engage  in  free  play  rather  than  in  or- 
ganized games. 

2.  Young  children  engage  in  a  somewhat  desultory 
fashion  in  running  games  and  other  forms  of  keen  competi- 
tion. 

3.  Then,  during  the  gang  period,  boys  develop  the 
highly  organized  games  and  unite  for  purposes  of  adven- 
ture. Girls  group  themselves  more  quietly,  and  are 
never  so  enthusiastic  about  games,  of  which,  however, 
they  become  interested  spectators  as  soon  as  they  begin 
to  be  interested  in  boys. 

4.  When  sex  attraction  appears,  young  people  like  to 
be  very  much  together,  at  parties,  in  social  groups,  on 
outings,  in  homes  where  they  are  welcome,  and  privately. 

When  the  subject  of  Play  was  being  discussed  (in 
Chapter  XVII)  enough  perhaps  was  said  for  our  present 
purpose  about  the  recreations  of  childhood.  Let  us  now 
think  for  a  little  of  the  recreations  of  youth,  involving 
what  is  frequently  called  "  the  amusement  question," 
and  wholesome  relations  between  the  sexes. 

To  those  who  accept  the  traditional  taboos  of  "  cards, 
theatre  and  dancing,"  this  question  appears  perfectly 
simple,  at  least  until  the  necessity  arises  under  modern 
conditions  of  providing  adequate  substitutes  for  those 
rejected  pleasures.  Today  the  tendency  is  to  reconsider 
the  whole  question  in  the  light  of  our  better  knowledge  of 
child  nature  and  to  seek  for  broad  principles  by  which 

214 


AMUSEMENTS  AND   SOCIAL  LIFE  215 

these  and  all  offered  recreations  may  be  tested.  Each 
era  has  its  new  problems  of  amusement  with  which  to 
deal.  Once  it  was  backgammon,  bear-baiting  and  ring- 
ing church  bells.  Today  we  have  the  motion  picture  show, 
the  trolley  park  and  the  week-end  party. 

Some  Problems  of  Social  Life 
The  following  list  of  present-day  problems  may  seem  a 
somewhat  miscellaneous  one,  yet  they  are  among  the  most 
important  which  parents  and  moralists  must  face  before 
they  can  settle  in  their  own  minds  what  they  would  ap- 
prove or  disapprove  for  the  young: 

1.  There  exists  the  universal  play  impulse  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  has  the  deepest  educative,  social  and  moral 
possibilities.  It  ought  not  to  be  neglected;  it  must  not 
be  crushed.  It  is  subject  to  many  perils;  its  best  fruits 
can  be  won  only  by  industrious  vigilance  and  positive 
provision  for  play  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  the  pro- 
tectors of  youth. 

2.  This  recognition  is  particularly  necessary  on  the 
part  of  adults,  who  not  only  have  forgotten  what  they  did, 
but  how  they  felt  when  they  were  young.  It  is  very  easy 
for  the  father  and  mother,  who  at  night  crave  nothing 
better  than  slippers,  books  or  a  quiet  game  at  home, 
to  fail  to  appreciate  the  natural  desire  of  their  children 
for  excitement,  a  crowd  and  a  boisterous  good  time  with 
other  boys  and  girls. 

3.  Adults  of  conservative  temper  who  were  brought 
up  in  a  Puritan  or  a  rural  atmosphere  do  not  readily  real- 
ize that  they  are. bringing  up  children  who  live  in  richer 
times  and  who  will  probably  make  their  homes  in  the  city. 
To  keep  a  child  from  what  seems  to  his  parents  dangerous 
conformity  to  the  world  may  actually  mean  to  keep  him 
in  social  ostracism  from  his  schoolmates.  Even  if  the 
parents  are  right  who  hold  such  a  position,  the  rebellious- 
ness of  their  children  who  cannot  even  see  their  point  of 
view  is  a  cause  of  keen  irritation.  To  them  it  appears 
that  nearly  all  the  regular  and  available  forms  of  enter- 
tainment   are    tabooed.      Seldom,  we  must  acknowledge, 


216        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

are  such  parents  equally  vigorous  and  faithful  to  endeavor 
to    find    other   and    better    recreational     opportunities. 

4.  Adults  who  are  serious-minded  and  who  wish  all  the 
pleasures  of  life  to  contribute  to  culture  and  character 
are  likely  to  forget  certain  manifest  limitations  of  youth. 
Young  people  are  not  resourceful.  To  grown  persons 
nothing  is  more  delightful  than  an  evening  of  chat.  But 
the  conversational  powers  of  the  young  are  easily  ex- 
hausted. Such  an  evening,  in  a  miscellaneous  company 
where  some  are  shy  and  some  are  not  bright,  would  drag 
terribly.  Before  the  third  dimension,  of  depth,  is  added, 
the  young  may  be  expected  to  giggle  over  nothing,  to  like 
to  play  games  rather  than  to  talk  and  to  engage  in  social 
pleasures  which  have  not  much  better  warrant  than  that 
they  pass  the  time. 

5.  The  dramatic  element  in  play  has  been  mentioned  as 
of  great  moment.  The  imaginative  side  has  been  stated 
to  be  the  major  part  of  the  play  of  youth.  The  desire  to 
have  the  sense  of  adventure,  to  perform  before  an  audience, 
to  look  upon  thrilling  scenes  —  these  are  a  part  of  the  very 
fact  of  being  young.  No  wonder  then  that  the  drama 
appeals  to  youth.  Whether  we  wish  to  admit  the  play- 
house or  not  into  our  children's  lives,  we  must  recognize 
and  provide  for  this  dramatic  instinct. 

6.  The  sex  element  in  recreation  is  equally  real  and 
equally  important.  Courtship  plays  have  existed  in 
every  race  and  time.  There  must  be  some  experiments 
in  getting  acquainted  between  the  sexes  during  the  quest 
for  life  partners.  When  we  object  to  the  dance  because  of 
its  erotic  suggestions,  we  must  not  forget  that  the  primal 
forces  are  present  just  the  same  and  that  the  instinct  for 
physical  contact  is  natural,  cannot  be  suppressed,  but  may 
be  conventionalized,  chaperoned  and  lifted  to  the  level  of 
gallantry. 

If  children  learn  to  dance  before  the  sex  impulse  ap- 
pears, amid  wholesome  surroundings  and  companion- 
ships, and  the  exercise  is  made  a  part  of  their  education, 
they  are  delivered  —  so  many  believe  —  from  the  later 
perils  of  the  ballroom.     To  teach  the  dance  early  is  to 


AMUSEMENTS  AND  SOCIAL  LIFE  217 

develop  in  their  lives  one  of  the  oldest,  most  natural  and 
most  joyous  of  the  arts. 

7.  The  tendency  of  the  amusements  of  young  people 
who  are  yet  at  school  to  become  unduly  luxurious  and 
extravagant  is  a  cause  of  concern  not  only  to  the  poor, 
but  to  all  who  believe  that  such  precocious  and  unwar- 
ranted indulgences  are  inappropriate  to  children  and 
dangerous  to  sweetness  and  contentment. 

8.  The  commercializing  of  pleasure  is  a  real  social 
peril.  It  tends  to  passive  rather  than  active,  public  rather 
than  domestic,  enjoyment.  More  seriously,  it  seeks  the 
level  of  the  crowd  rather  than  the  rising  ideals  of  the 
earnest-minded.  Its  cheapness,  its  popularity,  its  con- 
venience make  it  dangerously  available  even  to  children 
who  have  little  money  to  spend. 

Questions  for  Parents  to  Ask  Themselves 
The  writer  is  opposed  to  any  ready-made  answers  to 
these  problems.  After  all,  questions  are  more  essential 
than  answers,  questions  that  shall  set  us  thoughtfully  to 
find  our  own  answers.  These  are  some  queries  which  may 
properly  be  considered  by  the  individual  or  the  study 
class. 

1.  Shall  we  accept  the  dictum  of  our  church  or  social 
circle  or  family  tradition  or  shall  we  reconsider  the  whole 
amusement  problem  anew,  in  view  of  what  we  know  of 
the  needs  and  nature  of  childhood,  of  local  social  condi- 
tions and  of  the  opportunities  that  are  now  available? 

2.  Are  our  own  amusements  as  adults,  if  not  planned 
with  our  children  in  mind,  wholesome  for  them  to  imitate 
and  share,  and  adequate  for  them? 

3.  What  are  the  actual  recreational  resources  available 
in  our  homes  to  our  children  ? 

4.  Have  we  begun  early  enough  to  forecast  the  larger 
recreational  desires  that  are  to  come? 

5.  Considering  cards  as  time-fillers,  what  place,  if  any, 
should  they  have  in  the  family  life  ?  If  none,  what  other 
amusements  of  the  time-filling  class  shall  we  substitute? 

6.  Recognizing  the  sex-element  in  the  dance,  shall  we 


218       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

teach  dancing  to  our  children  before  the  sex-interest 
appears,  or  how  shall  we  endeavor  to  supervise  and  guide 
this  attraction  when  it  comes? 

7.  How  shall  we  provide  for  our  daughters  not  only 
prudent  chaperonage,  but  those  ideals  which  make 
chaperonage  less  necessary? 

8.  Shall  we  select  plays  and  accompany  our  children  to 
them,  or  shall  we  forbid  the  theatre  ?  How  shall  we  satisfy 
the  dramatic  instinct?  Can  we  do  something  in  the 
church  and  the  social  circle  as  well  as  the  home  to  develop 
its  active  as  well  as  its  passive  enjoyment? 

9.  If  cards  and  the  adventure-spirit  sometimes  lead  to 
gambling,  how  can  we  satisfy  the  spirit  of  adventure  in 
other  ways  that  are  wholesome? 

10.  How  may  we  help  fulfil  our  larger  duty,  in  co- 
operating with  others  to  improve  the  tastes,  increase  the 
wise  restrictions  and  remove  the  objectionable  and  fash- 
ionable factors  of  and  about  the  local  amusement 
situation  ? 

In  this  new  country  of  ours  we  have  been  slow  to  recog- 
nize the  importance  of  good  taste  as  a  part  of  beautiful 
living.  If  we  as  parents  put  ourselves  on  the  side  of 
decorous  dancing,  of  the  clean  and  uplifting  drama,  of 
courteous  social  living,  we  are  doing  more  than  to  redeem 
our  time  from  vulgarity  and  indecency  —  we  are  aligning 
ourselves  with  serene  and  potent  moral  forces. 

Reading  References 

A  great  many  books  have  been  written  from  the  negative  side  as  to  the 
amusement  question.  They  seldom  touch  the  impulses  that  lie  at  the 
bottom  of  the  problem.  This  Jane  Addams  has  done  with  sympathetic 
understanding  in  Chapters  II I  andlVof  "  TheSpiritof  Youth  and  the  City 
Streets."  The  author  has  suggested  his  own  viewpoint  as  a  parent  in 
"  The  Boy  Problem  in  the  Home,"  pp.  200-205.  Richard  H.  Edwards 
has  made  the  matter  a  special  study  and  has  written  two  valuable  books 
upon  it.  In  his  "  The  Amusement  Question  "  he  covers  the  whole  field 
of  public  and  commercial  recreation.  His  "  Christianity  and  Amuse- 
ments "  is  a  textbook  for  young  people  of  the  age  that  directly  faces  these 
problems,  and  is  personally  suggestive.  Ross:  "  Popular  Amusements  " 
is  also  good. 

The  Catholic  Theatre  Movement  of  New  York  City  publishes  annually 
a  "  white  list  "  of  standard  plays.  The  national  (Chicago)  and  local 
Drama  Leagues  issue  from  time  to  time  fists  of  recommended  current 
dramas. 


CHAPTER  XXX 
MONEY 

The  property  sense  does  not  appear  with  children  at 
the  beginning.  For  the  first  year  or  two,  while  they  grasp 
at  every  attractive  object,  they  relinquish  with  equanim- 
ity, and  on  the  whole  seem  to  take  about  as  much  pleasure 
in  seeing  things  in  the  hands  of  friends  as  in  their  own. 
Sometime  in  the  third  year,  this  disposition  changes  and 
there  is  a  strong  desire  to  hold  and  retain  their  own 
possessions.  At  this  period  children  do  not  share  so 
pleasantly.  We  have  spoken  of  the  fact  that  even  at  a 
party  each  child  monopolizes  some  toy  and  is  quite  con- 
tent to  play  with  it  by  himself.  It  is  dangerous  to  take 
children  of  this  age  to  a  toy  store,  because  they  are  likely 
to  claim  as  theirs  or  insist  stormily  upon  the  immediate 
purchase  of  whatever  attracts  their  attention.  They 
take  what  does  not  belong  to  them  without  compunction, 
on  the  principle  apparently  that  "  finding's  keepings." 
By  the  time  they  enter  school  they  gather  hoards  of 
trivial  objects,  and  at  a  later  period,  collections,  whether 
of  stamps,  cigar  tags  or  natural  objects,  are  of  interest 
because  of  their  quantity  rather  than  their  quality.  The 
child,  for  example,  would  rather  have  given  him  a  thou- 
sand postage  stamps  that  cost  a  quarter  than  a  few  unique 
examples.  In  this  the  competitive  spirit  is  involved. 
Childish  barter,  which  is  very  common,  consists  naturally 
of  the  exchange  of  objects  of  little  value,  but  even  these 
are  exchanged  because  of  their  brightness  or  color  or  for 
reasons  that  are  not  obvious  to  the  adult  mind. 

The  Child's  First  Relations  with  Money 
A  child  soon  learns  that  money  is  something  tnat  is 
regarded  by  adults  as  of  great  and  almost  magical  im- 
portance.    He  is  probably  usually  puzzled  by  his  first 

219 


220       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

experiences  with  it.  Various  sums  are  given  him  by  his 
fond  relatives  and  friends,  which  he  is  adjured  at  once 
to  put  into  the  bank,  a  disposal  which  must  strike  him  as 
at  once  foolish  and  useless.  He  soon  learns  from  such 
small  sums  as  he  is  allowed  to  use  that  it  is  a  medium  of 
exchange  for  candy  and  marbles  and  destructible  toys. 
Indeed  it  would  be  hard  for  adults  to  explain  the  incon- 
sistent position  which  they  take  with  children,  to  the 
effect  that  sums  large  enough  to  purchase  anything  worth 
while  ought  to  be  saved  while  the  smaller  amounts  are  to 
be  spent  at  once  for  what  will  injure  the  digestion  and  give 
only  momentary  pleasure.  Not  many  older  persons 
realize  that  money  may  have  educational  uses  from  the 
start  and  that  instruction  and  practice  as  to  its  uses  are  of 
the  greatest  importance  if  the  youth  is  ever  to  be  either 
prudent,  wise,  foresighted  or  generous  in  its  spending. 

In  the  first  place,  not  only  are  small  coins  one  of  the 
most  useful  means  by  which  to  learn  the  simpler  opera- 
tions of  arithmetic,  but  it  is  hard  to  see  how  a  child  can 
learn  the  value  of  money  unless  he  practices  these  very 
operations.  For  this  reason,  it  is  well  to  begin  to  create  a 
sense  of  values  by  giving  a  young  child  a  small  weekly 
allowance,  entirely  in  one-cent  pieces,  and  discussing  what 
they  will  amount  to  in  the  various  attractive  commodi- 
ties. Confectionery  and  perhaps  soda  water  should  be 
eliminated  from  the  budget  at  the  start,  because  the  home 
should  provide  wholesome  sweets  as  a  part  of  the  regular 
dietary  and  because  the  soda  fountain  is  usually  unsani- 
tary. "  Here  are  ten  pennies.  Now  let  us  go  down  to  the 
stores  and  ask  what  they  will  buy  for  you.  Here  is  a  whole 
bag  of  marbles  which  can  be  bought  for  ten  cents,  and 
here  is  a  ball  of  string  for  your  kite,  and  here  is  a  little 
Noah's  ark  —  but  it  doesn't  look  very  strong,  and  don't 
you  really  think  you  would  like  to  have  a  few  more 
animals?  That  one  is  marked  twenty-five  cents,  and  it 
is  so  much  stronger  and  has  four  times  as  many  animals, 
and  it  looks  as  if  it  would  float  on  real  water.  How  much 
is  twenty -five  cents?  See,  here  it  is  all  in  one-cent  pieces. 
It  is  quite  a  lot,  isn't  it?     And  how  long  would  it  take 


MONEY  221 

before  you  could  buy  it?  Well,  it  would  take  this  week 
and  next  week  —  and  you  have  five  cents  now  in  your 
little  bank,  haven't  you?  So  it  would  take  just  one  week, 
seven  days  longer,  to  get  the  big  ark.  But  you  don't 
want  to  wait?  Well,  just  think  it  over  a  few  minutes 
and  decide  which  you  will  do."  Very  likely  the  child  will 
decide  not  to  wait,  but  even  if  he  takes  the  poorer  bar- 
gain —  since  everything  is  Now  to  a  young  child  ■ —  he  will 
be  getting  an  experience  through  his  unwise  purchase,  he 
will  have  had  a  measure  of  values  illustrated,  and  he  will 
be  a  little  more  likely  to  show  some  self-control  next  time. 

Special  Problems  of  the  Allowance 
Why  should  not  the  parent  in  such  a  case  loan  the  child 
enough  to  make  his  desired  purchase  at  once  ?  Because  it 
will  only  postpone  the  hour  of  reckoning,  and  especially 
if  the  parent  is  indulgent  and  never  calls  for  repayment, 
will  educate  the  child  in  that  vice  of  modern  households, 
mortgaging  the  future.  Some  parents,  however,  think  it 
well  to  give  a  few  experiences  in  this  direction.  The  sug- 
gestion is  made  that  if  the  child  wishes  to  borrow  ten 
cents,  for  example,  his  allowance  for  the  next  fortnight, 
twenty  cents,  be  laid  out  in  two  piles  of  ten  cents  each. 
The  parent  then  suggests  drawing  five  cents  from  each 
pile.  The  child  looks  at  his  diminished  piles  and  realizes 
that  his  expenditures  for  the  next  following  weeks  must 
be  curtailed  so  much.  He  now  has  the  situation  clearly 
before  him  so  as  to  decide  whether,  for  the  sake  of  the 
immediate  gratification,  he  can  endure  these  deprivations 
in  the  future.  He  will  be  much  less  likely  to  accept  the 
loan  if  he  looks  at  those  lessened  piles  than  if  he  faced 
nothing  but  a  general  abstraction  to  the  effect  that  some- 
time he  must  return  the  borrowed  money.  It  helps  the 
transaction  if  the  child  is  told  the  nature  and  sacredness 
of  a  promissory  note  and  signs  one  solemnly  whenever  he 
makes  a  loan.  It  may  be  well  even  that  he  should  learn 
why  interest  is  charged  and  be  asked  to  pay  a  cent  or  so 
himself  on  long-term  loans. 
A  child's  allowance  ought  of  course  to  be  held  sacred. 


222        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

He  should  not  be  penalized  in  his  money  account.  It  is 
difficult  to  teach  honesty  to  a  child  when  money  is  at 
times  taken  from  him,  without  his  consent,  even  though 
he  has  done  wrong.  This  does  not  mean,  however,  that 
a  persistently  careless  child  should  not  pay  for  things  he 
destroys.  But  if  this  is  tried  some  article  should  be 
chosen  which  either  is  of  small  value  or  for  whose  de- 
struction a  moderate  penalty  may  wisely  be  required.  A 
conversation  should  be  entered  into,  of  which  the  logic 
will  be  that  the  child  himself  should  see  and  suggest  that 
to  purchase  another  plaything,  say,  in  return  for  that  one 
of  little  brother's  which  he  broke  would  be  most  fair. 
And  it  seems  wholesome  that,  instead  of  taking  his  sav- 
ings to  any  extent  for  this,  the  child  should  be  allowed  to 
earn  a  large  part  of  the  required  amount  by  childish  toils 
for  which  he  should  be  paid  reasonably  by  the  hour. 
Here,  too,  a  little  preliminary  figuring  will  be  useful,  and 
the  actual  labor  will  impress  the  cost  of  money  while  not 
infringing  upon  the  sacred  hoard. 

Should  Children  be  Paid  for  Work? 
This  brings  up  the  question  whether  children  should 
ever  be  paid  for  work  in  the  home.  It  is  thought  by  some 
that  to  allow  this  is  to  encourage  the  child  to  a  demand- 
ing disposition  and  discourage  him  from  offering  services 
of  love.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  difficult  to  make  the 
allowance  at  all  elastic  for  changing  needs  and  wants  or 
to  interpret  what  salary-earning  means  or  even  to  make 
clear  how  work  is  an  exchange  for  cash  without  some  such 
arrangement.  And  it  is  quite  possible  to  make  an  ad- 
justment which  will  include  services  for  reward  without, 
excluding  services  for  love.  The  whole  matter  of  wisely 
handling  the  finances  of  children  seems  to  depend  upon  a 
right  attitude  on  the  part  of  all  concerned,  and  it  is  the 
failure  to  find  and  hold  this  attitude  which  explains  most 
of  the  difficulties  with  this  matter  between  husbands  and 
wives  as  well  as  between  parents  and  children.  In  the 
home  where  the  father  gives  money  only  in  responses  to 
request  or  entreaty,  the  arrangement  is  as  unbusinesslike 


MONEY  223 

as  it  is  unwise.  It  assumes  the  absolute  dependence  and 
incapacity  of  the  child  and  makes  the  father  the  perpetual 
arbiter  of  each  separate  expenditure.  Not  only  does  this 
cause  the  child's  income  to  depend  upon  the  mood  or 
whim  of  the  parent,  but  it  puts  him  in  such  perpetual  un- 
certainty regarding  that  income  that  he  has  no  opportunity 
to  learn  the  value  of  money  or  of  its  uses,  and  it  holds  him 
in  such  a  position  of  subservience  that  when  he  is  old 
enough  to  have  considerable  sense  he  is  treated  as  if  he 
had  none.  This  situation  is  unfair,  unwise  and  full  of 
irritation.  In  the  home  where  the  parent  gives  a  regular 
allowance  but  never  anything  more,  the  situation  is  better 
because  it  is  more  certain,  but  it  is  too  rigid  and  still 
involves  the  attitude  that  the  parent  is  all-wise  and  all- 
comprehending,  which  is  never  the  case.  Both  attitudes 
assume  that  the  child  is  a  dependent,  a  serf.  The  right 
attitude  is  quite  different.  It  is  this:  That  the  child  is  a 
junior  partner,  and  that  he  is,  therefore,  entitled  to  his 
fair  share  of  the  income  of  the  concern.  His  allowance 
is  not  an  act  of  grace,  it  is  a  right.  As  a  partner  he  has 
his  obligations  as  well  as  his  privileges.  He  has  much  to 
give,  —  his  loyal  affection,  his  attention  as  a  learner  in  the 
concern,  his  share  in  the  tasks  of  the  household  and  of  the 
business.  For  this  he  receives  his  allowance,  his  salary, 
if  you  please,  which  increases  with  his  ability  to  serve  as 
well  as  with  his  needs.  If,  when  there  comes  to  him  an 
extraordinary  need  or  desire,  he  is  willing  to  do  an  extra 
task,  he  may  receive  an  extra  salary,  without  modifying 
the  regular  arrangement  by  which  he  gives  as  well  as 
receives.  If  this  is  all  carefully  talked  over,  the  child 
will  appreciate  and  understand  it.  In  a  home  where  this 
is  the  attitude  there  is  little  difficulty  about  "  hold  ups  " 
from  the  children.  They  have  from  the  beginning  been 
taken  into  the  confidence  of  their  parents,  so  far  as  was 
discreet,  concerning  the  sources  of  the  family  income. 
They  have  some  inkling  of  how  hard  father  has  to  work 
to  earn  his  salary,  what  sacrifices  mother  makes  to  keep 
the  home  together.  They  will  come  in  sometimes,  beg- 
ging to  be  given  what  "  the  other  children  "  have,  but  if 


224        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

they  share  the  family  hopes  and  ambitions  they  will  not  be 
so  demanding,  knowing  that  the  prudence  or  self-restraint 
of  their  "  concern  "  has  its  own  high  aims  and  its  large 
plans.  This  does  not  mean  that  children  are  to  be  both- 
ered with  all  the  family  anxieties  or  that  they  are  to 
babble  the  family  secrets,  but  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
any  way  by  which  children  in  homes  of  moderate  circum- 
stances can  be  brought  up  among  other  homes  of  wealth 
or  of  careless  expenditures  without  envy,  except  by  train- 
ing them  in  wise  and  cheerful* thrift. 

The  Adjustment  of  the  Allowance 
It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  state  what  the  amount  of 
the  allowance  in  a  given  family  should  be.  Its  purpose, 
as  stated  above,  will  suggest  to  each  parent  what  is  right. 
That  purpose  is  not  the  bestowing  of  a  weekly  license  to 
waste  or  indulgence.  It  is  a  just  arrangement  for  an 
educative  end.  That  end  is  the  instruction  of  the  child 
in  what  is  worth  while.  He  will  at  first  naturally  buy 
nothing  but  playthings,  which  is  very  much  worth  while 
for  him.  He  will  learn  that  it  is  better  to  deny  himself  at 
times  and  always  to  buy  things  that  will  last  and  give 
enduring  pleasure.  As  his  nature  deepens  he  may  want 
to  have  tools  or  books,  and  eventually  he  will  have  a  keen 
interest  in  clothes  and  social  pleasures.  The  allowance 
should  accommodate  itself  to  these  legitimate  desires,  and 
should  be  supplemented  by  self-sacrificing  extra  labors 
of  his  own.  In  the  writer's  judgment,  the  allowance, 
given  on  this  principle,  may  properly  be  somewhat  larger 
than  is  customary.  The  fact  that  the  child  "  spends  every 
cent  he  gets  "  does  not  in  itself  prove  that  he  is  a  spend- 
thrift. Perhaps  he  does  not  get  enough  for  his  wants. 
Putting  money  in  the  bank  is  a  noble  habit  for  adults, 
but  to  do  so  when  a  child  is  not  so  natural,  since  to  the 
child  it  seems  very  much  like  losing  it  altogether.  To 
delay  in  spending  for  the  sake  of  better  goods  is  about 
as  much  as  we  may  expect,  until  the  youth  gets  some  real 
purpose  to  save  for,  which  hardly  comes  before  adoles- 
cence.    Of  one  thing  the  writer  is  so  sure  that  he  has  made 


MONEY  225 

it  a  definite  crusade  wherever  his  voice  has  been  heard. 
The  allowance  should,  as  the  child  grows  both  in  his 
desires  and  his  knowledge  of  the  use  of  money,  become, 
early  in  the  high  school  years,  inclusive  —  that  is,  it  should 
embrace  clothes,  social  pleasures,  school  fares  and  lunches, 
and  everything  except  board  at  home  and  such  accidents 
as  medical  and  dental  care.  This  plan  enables  the  youth 
to  do  what  too  few  adults  ever  attain, —  have  a  budget  and 
work  to  it.  It  has  to  be  bestowed  and  administered  with 
some  oversight  by  the  parent,  but  it  is  the  writer's  con- 
viction, observation  and  experience  that  it  is  the  one  most 
important  arrangement  between  parent  and  child  which 
is  possible  during  the  adolescent  years.  Its  outreach  is 
extraordinary,  for  it  is  not  only  an  education  in  taste  and 
in  prudence,  but  it  particularly  affects  the  youth's  choice 
of  entertainments  and  social  pleasures,  the  responsibility 
of  which  is  placed  upon  his  own  shoulders  and  which  are 
governed  by  the  necessary  choice  between  many  invita- 
tions in  behalf  of  those  which  his  income  causes  him  to 
decide  are  worth  while.  The  influence  of  this  arrange- 
ment in  continuing  pleasant  relations  between  the  parent 
and  the  youth  and  in  developing  self-mastery  is  remark- 
able. 

Further  Suggestions 

1.  A  regular  weekly  or  monthly  accounting  of  all 
expenditures  should  be  made.  Bookkeeping  forms  should 
be  learned  in  this  way.  The  parents  should  know  but  not 
necessarily  control  expenditures. 

2.  Children  should  be  trained  in  the  purchase  of 
clothes  and  wearing  apparel  before  adolescence;  first, 
minor  articles;  then  major  articles  with  the  parent 
present  at  the  beginning  to  explain  differences  in  quality, 
usableness,  etc. 

3.  Children  should  be  early  taught  to  make  purchases 
for  the  household  with  discrimination  as  to  quality  and 
price.  This  applies  to  both  boys  and  girls.  They  should 
learn  to  judge  fruits,  meats,  vegetables,  bakery  goods, 
kitchen  utensils,  carpets,  furniture,  wall  paper,  pictures, 


226        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

etc.     They  will  enjoy  learning  if  they  are  actually  allowed 
to  choose  little  by  little. 

4.   Let   the  children  early  do  the  household  banking 
and  paying  of  accounts. 


Education  in  Benevolence 

There  is  room  to  say  a  word  about  educating  the  child 
in  benevolence.  Forced  benefactions  are,  of  course,  worse 
than  useless;  they  leave  a  feeling  of  injustice  to  rankle, 
and  dry  up  the  springs  of  generous  feeling.  Formal 
gifts,  such  as  "  the  penny  for  Sunday  school,"  only  induce 
thoughtless  giving.  Generosity  must  begin  and  be  kept 
alive  by  a  real  and  deep  appreciation  of  human  need. 
The  natural  way  to  begin  is  with  physical  needs,  such  as 
those  the  child  can  realize,  need  for  food  and  shelter,  and 
especially  the  needs  of  children.  These  rather  than  the 
"  Boards  "  of  the  church  must  be  emphasized  at  first. 
The  child  must  learn,  too,  from  the  start  that  "  the  gift 
without  the  giver  is  bare,"  and  should  give  his  personal 
service  oftener  than  his  money.  He  may  rightly  follow 
his  gifts  with  intelligence,  knowing  somewhat  of  how  they 
are  administered,  and  not  getting  the  idea  that  they  all 
go  to  the  minister  or  the  church  treasurer,  for  example. 
He  may  be  given  reading  matter  which  shall  make  real 
the  fields  of  service  where  his  money  may  help,  and  should 
know  that  his  gift  can  do  a  tangible  thing,  such  as  to  sus- 
tain a  famine  orphan  for  a  day  or  keep  a  sick  child  on  a 
floating  hospital  for  an  equally  definite  time.  The  Sun- 
day school  and  the  young  people's  society  should  educate 
their  young  people  in  these  same  directions,  by  teaching 
the  actual  and  unutterable  needs  and  the  practical  means 
of  supply;  also  by  having  children  choose  between 
alternatives.  In  adolescence  it  is  desirable  to  set  before 
young  people  the  way  by  which  human  gifts  and  human 
service  take  their  place  in  the  whole  of  social  betterment. 
Then  at  least  they  may  learn  how  their  consecration  may 
help  destroy  the  factors  which  multiply  misery  faster 
than  money  can  relieve  it. 


MONEY  227 

Reading  References 

E.  A.  Kirkpatrick  has  just  produced  an  excellent  book  dealing  with  all 
the  problems  touched  upon  in  this  chapter.  It  is  entitled  "  The  Use  of 
Money." 

Chapter  VIII  of  Carl  Ewald's  "  My  Little  Boy  "  gives  some  amusing 
experiences  of  a  small  child  adventuring  for  the  first  time  with  his  weekly 
allowance. 

There  are  more  books  that  tell  how  to  make  money  than  how  to  spend  it. 
Cunningham's  "  The  Christian  Use  of  Money  "  suggests  to  adults  rather 
than  to  children  the  principles  that  underlie  financial  unselfishness.  Hix- 
son's  "  Missions  in  the  Sunday  School,"  pp.  119-135,  gives  advice  about 
training  children  to  give.  To  help  young  people  face  the  large  problem  of 
money  wisely,  nothing  is  better  than  a  chapter  in  Elliott  and  Cutler's 
textbook,  "  Student  Standards  of  Action,"  pp.  31-44,  entitled  "  An  Ex- 
pense Account."  St.  John's  "  Child  Nature  and  Child  Nurture,"  pp. 
97-106,  shows  parents  how  to  train  children  aright  in  relation  to  property 
and  benevolence. 

The  Missionary  Education  Movement  and  all  the  denominational 
boards  circulate  tracts  upon  Christian  stewardship  of  money.  They  also 
furnish  lists  of  recommended  stories  and  biographies  upon  missionary 
themes. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WHEN   THE   CHILDREN   BECOME 
"  YOUNG  PEOPLE  " 

This  chapter  rounds  out  the  discussion  of  the  home 
training  of  children  which  began  in  Chapter  X  and  was 
continued  in  Chapter  XXVII. 

In  the  other  chapters  we  frequently  used  the  word 
"government";  we  must  now  substitute  the  word 
"  help."  We  said  that  obedience  by  the  child  was  a 
temporary  necessity  until  he  could  learn  self -obedience. 
We  said  that  the  purpose  of  punishment  is  to  affect  the 
child's  desires  even  more  than  his  conduct,  and  that  what 
we  seek  is  to  develop  a  creature  who  knows  what  he  is 
about  and  who  has  the  will  to  do  it.  The  logic  of  all  this 
is  that,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  children  when  they  be- 
come "  young  people  "  (a  much  more  human  word  than 
"  adolescents  ")  should  not  be  governed,  but  helped. 

The  Situation  of  Young  People 
The  situation  is  a  very  difficult  one. 
On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  youth  himself.     Here  are 
some  of  his  traits : 

1.  He  has  a  new  sense  of  personal  power,  he  does  not 
want  to  obey  others,  but  he  does  not  know  just  what  he 
wants  to  do  himself. 

2.  He  has  a  keen  desire  for  excitement  and  entertain- 
ment, many  wants  that  require  money,  but  he  usually 
has  neither  the  money  nor  the  physical  endurance  to  en- 
joy himself  as  he  would;  his  desires  are  independent  of 
his  parents,  but  he  is  still  dependent  upon  them  financially. 

3.  He  has  a  new  spirit  of  daring  and  adventure,  par- 
ticularly when  supported  by  his  crowd,  and  will  do  with 
them  things  that  he  would  never  do  alone. 

4.  His  romantic  spirit,  his  frequent  discouragement  and 

228 


CHILDREN   BECOME   "YOUNG  PEOPLE"      229 

disappointment  in  his  achievements  and  pleasures,  his 
ebbs  and  flows  of  emotion,  combine  to  make  him  reticent ; 
this  with  his  new  independence  may  alienate  him  from 
his  home. 

5.  Following  this,  he  may  become  restless  in  school, 
tired  of  humdrum,  disposed  to  wander. 

6.  The  interest  of  the  sexes  in  each  other  grows  to  be 
absorbing  and  relates  itself  with  many  physical,  mental 
and  moral  problems. 

7.  Although  there  is  often  lack  of  interest  in  the  church 
and  its  institutions,  there  is  often,  in  the  same  youths, 
keen  sensitiveness  to  moral  and  religious  matters. 

8.  While  the  development  of  the  girl  is  not  character- 
ized by  such  jerky  revolutions  as  that  of  boys,  it  comes 
earlier  and  follows  very  much  the  same  course. 

The  Attitude  of  Parents 
The   average  parent,   thirty  years  removed  from  his 
child,  has  quite  a  different  attitude. 

1.  He  has  lost  and  perhaps  forgotten  the  feeling  of 
exuberance  and  of  desire  which  young  people  feel. 

2.  He  has  learned  to  measure  things  more  truly  as  to 
their  worth,  and  he  finds  it  hard  to  sympathize  with  the 
passion  which  young  people  feel  for  a  constant  "  good 
time."  If  he  is  poor  the  new  financial  demands  seem  to 
him  unjust,  and  if  he  is  thoughtful  they  appear  dangerous. 

3.  He  finds  it  difficult  to  keep  close  to  his  children, 
who  have  suddenly  become  at  once  so  annoyingly  self- 
assertive  and  so  bafningly  secretive. 

4.  He  sees  more  readily  the  perils  than  the  purpose  of 
the  new  sex  problems  that  have  arisen. 

5.  Amid  the  turmoil  of  the  youth's  desires  he  does  not 
readily  single  out  the  significance  of  the  real  quest  for 
vocational  and  religious  settlement,  and  is  apt  to  measure 
them  as  mere  fickleness  and  restlessness. 

The  Mutual  Problems 
So   there  are  some   hard   problems   that   parents  and 
children  ought  to  solve  together,  which  too  often  they 


230       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

try  to  solve  separately.  These  may  conveniently  be 
separated  and  listed,  though  in  fact  they  dovetail  and 
interact  continually.     Some  of  them  are  these: 

The  Problem  of  Building  a  Body  Adequate  for  Man- 
hood. 

The  Problem  of  Getting  a  Thorough  Intellectual  Prepa- 
ration for  Life. 

The  Problem  of  Vocational  Choice. 

The  Problem  of  Wholesome  Recreational  Tastes  and 
Habits. 

The  Sex  Problem,  especially  that  of  Choosing  a  Life 
Partner. 

The  Problem  of  Faith. 

This  extraordinary  new  situation  demands  a  recasting 
of  our  whole  program.  We  have  now  to  complete  the 
transition  of  the  management  of  the  child  by  adults  to 
his  own  complete  self-management.  We  can  no  longer 
command  or  punish;  it  is  useless  to  nag  or  scold.  The 
demands  upon  us  as  parents  are  extreme.  While  the 
youth  is  never  calm,  we  must  always  be  calm.  Though 
he  is  frequently  disquieted  and  often  in  despair,  we  must 
ever  be  hopeful.  When,  as  Le  Baron  Briggs  says,  he 
wants  to  act  like  a  child  and  be  treated  like  a  gentleman, 
we  must  have  enough  sense  of  humor  to  do  it.  When  he 
is  most  impertinent,  contrary  and  cold  we  must  be  least  so. 

The  situation  has  its  encouraging  features.  Most  of 
the  things  that  annoy  are  transitory,  some  of  them  are 
hopeful.  If  the  youth  is  garrulous  about  himself  it 
means  that  he  is  trying  to  be  confidential,  and  is  probably 
explaining  himself,  perhaps  trying  to  understand  and 
control  himself.  If  he  is  susceptible  to  unworthy  com- 
panions, susceptibility  is  impartial  and  he  will  respond 
with  equal  enthusiasm  to  worthy  ones,  if  we  can  find 
them  for  him.  If  he  is  not  studious,  maybe  he  is  not 
following  the  line  of  study  that  will  kindle  his  interests 
and  fit  him  for  his  real  life-work.  Probably,  too,  he  most 
yearns  for  love  and  appreciation  when  he  least  knows  how 
to  receive  them.  And  the  best  of  all  is  that  as  they  be- 
come most  trying  these  young  people  are  just  about  to 


CHILDREN  BECOME   "YOUNG   PEOPLE"      231 

become  most  enjoyable,  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
old  enough  to  be  capable  of  being  comrades  on  a  real  level 
with  their  fathers  and  mothers.  Though  they  may  be  too 
busy  discovering  themselves  to  be  grateful,  they  do  now 
begin  to  become  real  friends. 

To  say  that  an  equal  comradeship  begins  now  is  not 
to  imply  that  companionship  should  not  have  been  set 
up  many  years  before.  The  parent,  it  is  to  be  supposed, 
has  already  relearned  children's  plays  and  games,  and 
now  is  ready  to  induct  his  young  people  into  wider  and 
deeper  pleasures,  such  as  travel  and  camping  out. 

Establishing  Favorable  Conditions 
We  see  at  once  that  the  youth  has  to  solve  problems 
for  which  he  needs  favorable  conditions.     Most  of  these 
the  average  home  can  supply. 

Physical  protection  is  urgent.  Both  boys  and  girls  are 
tempted  now  to  overdraw  their  nervous  energy.  This 
comes  chiefly  through  the  over-developed  social  life  of 
the  high  school.  The  boy  who  goes  heartily  into  athletics 
may  conquer  this  temptation,  but  if  too  strenuous  may 
meet  the  other  one  of  physical  overstrain.  The  girl,  less 
active  physically,  is  too  often  given  the  extra  burden  of 
music  lessons.  We  have  to  fight  for  the  right  proportion  of 
food,  sleep  and  exercise  to  -carry  the  fast-growing  body 
through  this  season  of  strain.  Review  and  reminder  of 
the  meaning  of  the  physical  changes  which  overtake 
youth  at  the  beginning  of  adolescence  have  already  been 
strongly  advocated. 

It  is  because  of  the  emotional  as  well  as  the  physical 
tension  of  the  time  that  we  need  to  study  the  problem 
seriously  not  only  as  individual  parents,  but  also  to  unite 
in  groups  sufficiently  strong  to  create  public  sentiment 
against  the  wearying  and  precocious  social  demands  upon 
young  people's  lives  in  our  communities  today.  The 
parent  who  tries  alone  to  segregate  his  own  children  from 
such  social  opportunities  as  are  expressed  by  the  continual 
round  of  parties,  school  dances,  automobile  trips,  theatre 
parties,   moving  picture   shows,   has  an   ungracious   and 


232       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

almost  impossible  task.  It  is  all  the  more  difficult  because 
the  restless  youth  has  for  a  time  seemed  to  outgrow  his  quiet 
home,  whose  resources  are  with  difficulty  extended  to  repre- 
sent all  the  excitement  and  hospitality  he  craves.  A  great 
deal  has  been  done  by  co-operation.  In  some  places  the 
high  school  and  the  home  have  narrowed  the  social  life 
of  pupils  closely  to  one  evening  in  the  week.  Neighbor- 
hood groups  of  mothers  have  made  such  social  occasions 
more  simple  and  appropriate.  In  many  churches  the 
social  organizations  of  boys  and  girls  begin  their  work  be- 
fore high  school  and  retain  a  wholesome  influence  well 
on  through  the  high-school  period. 

The  one  word  that  needs  to  be  emphasized  is  that  the 
home  must  expect  to  take  a  good  deal  of  pains  with  its 
children  during  this  whole  period.  One  sympathizes 
with  the  mother  who  expressed  the  wish  to  go  into  a 
retreat  during  the  year  before  her  oldest  child  entered 
high  school  so  that  grace  and  wisdom  might  be  given  her 
for  the  ordeal.  A  mother  who  endeavors  to  perform  the 
whole  parental  task  now  alone  is  at  a  pitiful  disadvantage. 
As  was  said  in  an  early  chapter,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
believe  that  the  mother  is  chiefly  suited  to  train  children 
when  they  are  young  if  we  say  that  now  a  peculiar  oppor- 
tunity comes  to  the  father.  He  knows  some  things  about 
what  it  means  to  be  a  big  boy  that  the  boy's  mother 
cannot  know.  He  has  special  traits  which  suit  him  to  be 
his  daughter's  first  lover.  His  very  business  training  and 
experience  may  fit  him  to  study  and  solve  the  adolescent 
problem  in  a  large  and  broad-minded  way.  His  financial 
co-operation  is  necessary  to  meet  the  properly  enlarged 
wants  of  youth  and  to  equip  the  house  to  continue  it  as 
the  social  center  of  his  children's  lives.  As  a  voting  citi- 
zen he  ought  to  join  with  others  in  putting  through  needed 
regulations  which  shall  make  the  community  life  safe  for 
all  young  people. 

Using  the  Ruling  Motives 
The  hardest  thing  a  parent  has  to  do  is  to  realize  that  a 
time  has  come  when  he  must  take  his  hands  off  his  child 


CHILDREN   BECOME   "  YOUNG  PEOPLE  "      233 

whether  for  control  or  punishment.  When  a  child  could 
be  whipped  or  shut  up  or  held  down  physically,  it  seemed 
as  if  we  could  really  do  something  to  him  and  for  him, 
but  it  is  very  hard  to  reconcile  to  ourselves  that  we  are 
now  dealing  with  a  separate  personality  with  rights  and 
privileges  of  his  own.  And,  of  course,  the  bitterest  realiza- 
tion is  that  one  of  his  privileges  is  that  of  making  his  own 
mistakes.  The  great  lesson  to  parents  of  adolescents  is, 
that  they  can  no  longer  move  the  child  as  by  a  belt  of 
power  from  themselves  wound  round  a  wheel  on  the 
outside  of  the  child,  but  that  they  must  let  the  child  go 
by  motive  power  that  is  within  himself. 

What  are  the  motive  powers  of  youth? 

One  of  them  is  Pride.  It  may  begin  in  nothing  greater 
than  an  interest  in  clothes  and  in  keeping  clean.  It  leads 
to  the  cultivation  of  social  graces,  it  may  move  to  such  a 
conventionalization  of  conduct  as  shall  deliver  from  the 
more  brutish  vices,  it  may  rise  to  the  level  of  personal 
honor.  Of  course,  it  can  sink  to  snobbery  and  general 
uselessness.  But  we  can  encourage  it  and  believe  in  its 
highest  uses.  Often  the  appreciation  and  expectancy  of 
a  parent  have  proven  the  steadying  power  that  has 
brought  the  youth  who  was  discouraged  about  himself 
through  to  success. 

This  evidently  relates  itself  to  Hero-Worship.  It  is 
rather  extraordinary  how  a  youth  always  idealizes  in 
terms  of  biography.  One  who  resents  any  kind  of  per- 
sonal advice  will  frankly  form  himself  after  an  individual 
model.  We  cannot  conceive  any  influence  in  Sunday 
school  during  the  adolescent  years  so  powerful  as  that  of 
a  teacher  who  represents  in  his  own  person  what  boys  or 
girls  wish  to  be. 

Responsibility  is  pride  carrying  its  own  burden.  ^  The 
youth  who  fails  as  an  assistant  often  succeeds  admirably 
if  he  is  put  in  charge  of  the  job.  The  value  of  the  inclu- 
sive financial  allowance  is  that  it  puts  the  situations  the 
young  person's  own  hands.  In  no  trade-apprenticeship 
can  one  get  very  far  unless  he  has  a  chance  to  learn  by 
doing  something  alone.     The  only  men  upon  whom  any- 


234        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

one  has  ever  depended  for  service  are  those  who  have 
proven  capable  of  bearing  responsibility.  We  parents 
fail  here  more  often  than  do  our  children.  We  do  not 
dare  to  let  them  make  their  own  mistakes.  We  cannot 
see  that  mistakes  must  inevitably  be  made  and  that  they 
are  never  made  more  safely  than  when  those  who  make 
them  are  to  some  degree  protected.  We  forget  that  part 
at  least  of  what  the  youth  does  of  which  we  disapprove 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  not  going  to  be  an  entire  copy 
of  ourselves.  What  he  does  may  mean  something  for 
his  individuality  that  is  too  precious  for  him  to  lose. 

A  Life  Purpose  is  the  most  important  product  and  the 
most  potent  force  of  adolescence.  It  is  what  he  loves  that 
constitutes  the  propelling  power  of  any  man's  life.  This 
purpose  may  center  for  a  time  about  a  human  affection, 
or  it  may  have  to  do  with  vocation.  All  "  conversions  " 
during  adolescence  are  not  in  church,  though  most  of 
them  as  they  deepen  become  essentially  religious.  We 
desire,  of  course,  that  they  be  consciously  so.  We  would 
have  them  embrace  a  social  consecration  also. 

Parents  do  not  originate  these  motives  of  which  we 
have  been  speaking,  but  they  can  feed  them  and  they  can 
give  them  room  to  grow.  One  planteth  and  another 
watereth  and  God  giveth  the  increase. 

Reading  References 

The  problems  that  have  been  discussed  in  this  chapter  in  a  general  way 
are  taken  up  helpfully  in  the  following  books: 

Hall:  "  Adolescence,"  particularly  Chapters  X  and  XL 

Slattery:  "  The  Girl  in  Her  Teens." 

Swift:  "  The  High  School  Age." 

Fiske:  "  Boy  Life  and  Self -Government,"  particularly  Chapters  V  and 
XIV. 

Kirtley:  "  That  Boy  of  Yours." 

The  author  has  discussed  adolescence  more  thoroughly  in  "  The  Boy 
Problem  in  the  Home,"  pp.  219-277. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
VOCATIONAL  OPPORTUNITIES 

President  Charles  W.  Eliot  once  said,  ' '  The  career 
motive  has  the  greatest  spiritual  content  of  all  motives." 
The  statement  may  at  first  seem  exaggerated,  but  when 
we  realize  how  much  finding  one's  own  place  in  life  means 
toward  the  fullest  use  of  spiritual  consecration,  we  can 
see  how  this  may  be  true.  It  is  not  strange,  therefore, 
that  matters  of  vocational  training  and  guidance  are  the 
livest  topics  in  educational  discussion.  It  ought  not  to 
be  strange  that  they  should  be  faced  earnestly  in  domestic 
and  religious  circles.  To  make  a  careless  investment  of 
a  life  is  surely  one  of  the  deadly  sins.  To  make  a  right 
investment  is  to  be  in  the  way  of  fulfilling  the  fondest 
hopes  that  a  parent  can  cherish. 

We  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  multitudes  of 
young  persons  are  not  facing  this  decision  wisely.  Many 
of  them  drift  from  school  into  work,  influenced  by  no 
better  motive  than  distaste  for  study  or  the  glowing  re- 
ports of  a  comrade  who  has  found  employment.  Others 
take  their  father's  calling  for  granted  as  their  own,  with- 
out asking  whether  it  has  the  same  advantages  that  it 
had  when  the  father  was  young,  or  go  into  some  new 
vocation  without  inquiring  whether  it  meets  a  permanent 
demand  of  society  or  whether  it  is  already  overcrowded. 
Immediateness  of  profit  is  so  much  desired  that  any  em- 
ployment bureau  can  within  an  hour  furnish  to  any  em- 
ployer fresh,  unskilled  labor  of  youth  who  are  thus 
thoughtlessly  ready  to  trade  their  possibilities  for  a 
temporary  wage.  But  the  foolish  choices  which  young 
people  make  are  not  always  because  of  shortsightedness 
or  carelessness  of  the  future.  They  are  due  to  ignorance, 
ignorance  of  the  fields  of  toil  and  ignorance  of  the  require-1 
ments  for  any  special  field.  And  since  we  who  are  older 
are  not  much  better  informed,  it  seems  necessary  to  pref- 

235 


236       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

ace  the  consideration  of  vocational  guidance  of  the  young 
by  a  brief  consideration  of  the  modern  vocational  situa- 
tion and  of  the  present  facilities  for  vocational  education. 

Changes  in  the  Vocations 
The  most  important  of  these  changes  are  those  that 
have  come  as  the  result  of  the  introduction  of  labor-saving 
machinery.  Once  the  cobbler  made  a  whole  shoe;  today 
in  the  shoe  factory  more  than  twenty  men  are  employed 
in  making  a  shoe,  each  doing  but  a  small  part.  This 
means  the  passing  of  the  artisan  and  the  entrance  of  the 
"  operative."  The  artisan  was  an  intelligent,  trained, 
adaptable  worker  who  conduc  ed  his  own  business. 
The  operative  need  not  be  intelligent  so  long  as  he  is 
trained  to  do  some  one  small  task,  which  with  its  narrow 
training  and  monotonous  practice  takes  from  him  all 
initiative  and  adaptability.  He  is  an  employee,  too, 
whose  place  may  so  easily  be  filled  that  he  is  quite  at 
the  disposal  of  his  employer,  especially  since  he  is  helpless 
away  from  his  one  capability. 

Against  the  aggressions  of  employers  has  risen  a  power- 
ful trades-union  system  aiming  to  protect  its  members 
from  unreasonable  requirements  and  from  inadequate 
wages.  In  the  skilled  trades  collective  bargaining  has 
been  especially  effective  and  it  has  proven  of  some  ac- 
count even  in  those  which  require  but  little  training. 
The  trades  unions  have,  however,  tended  to  hamper  the 
ambitious  by  holding  down  the  productiveness  of  the 
individual  to  the  level  of  the  average  and  only  about  half 
of  them  have  shown  an  active  interest  in  insisting  upon 
systems  of  apprenticeship  which  shall  give  young  men 
and  women  thorough  preparation. 

Important  vocational  changes  have  come  from  the 
steady  movement  of  population  to  the  cities  and  especially 
to  the  great  cities.  This  means  not  only  the  flooding  of 
these  centers  with  the  unskilled  and  consequently  the 
unemployed,  but  it  has  the  even  more  important  meaning 
that  the  variety  of  industries  in  the  villages  and  towns 
grows  continually  smaller,  so  that  to  boys  and  girls  who 


VOCATIONAL  OPPORTUNITIES  237 

live  in  small  places  the  range  of  choice  grows  ever  more 
and  more  limited.  We  have  hardly  realized  yet  the  social 
import  of  the  fact  that  the  best  blood  of  the  country  is 
getting  the  narrowest  opportunity  to  find  its  most  fitting 
outlet. 

Two  conditions  of  industry  have  come  lately  to  modify 
to  some  extent  vocational  possibilities  One  is  the  de- 
velopment of  seasonal  industries,  dependent  upon  har- 
vests or  fashions  or  greatly  fluctuating  supply  and  demand. 
Closely  connected  with  these  are  district  industries,  utiliz- 
ing men  in  one  part  of  the  country  only  and  that  often 
a  part  in  which  there  are  no  other  opportunities.  An 
illustration  of  an  industry  that  is  both  seasonal  and  local 
is  wheat  harvesting  in  the  northwest,  which  calls  for 
enormous  numbers  of  men  for  only  a  few  months  of  the 
year  who  cannot  possibly  find  employment  in  that  part 
of  the  country  after  their  special  job  is  over.  Socially, 
this  suggests  the  need  of  elaborate  adjustments  of  whole 
regiments  of  toilers,  which  we  have  not  yet  learned  how 
to  make;  individually,  it  sets  before  men  thus  employed 
a  constantly  critical  and  difficult  personal  problem. 

Immigration  so  far  has  not  made  easier  the  matter  of 
finding  attractive  vocational  opportunities.  In  the  skilled 
trades  the  German  and  English  artisans,  trained  as  ap- 
prentices and  educated  in  continuation  schools,  take  posi- 
tions which  young  Americans  with  their  hit-or-miss 
preparation  cannot  hold,  while  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
scale  there  is  always  an  army  of  unskilled  Italians  or 
Hungarians  crowding  the  labor  market. 

Race  prejudice  has  come  to  have  some  effect  upon  voca- 
tional possibilities.  The  negro  in  the  North  is  finding  one 
door  after  another  of  opportunity  closing  before  him. 
The  Chinese  and  Japanese  have  never  been  given  more 
than  the  most  limited  room  in  the  world  of  toil. 

The  entrance  of  women  into  daily  work  has  made  far- 
reaching  changes  in  the  vocations.  They  have  not,  as  a 
rule,  risen  to  administrative  and  executive  positions,  but 
they  have  taken  the  places  of  men  almost  entirely  in 
clerical  tasks  and  in  education. 


238       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Thus  far  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  trades.  Com- 
merce and  the  professions  are  also  undergoing  great 
changes.  The  grocer,  for  example,  was  until  recently 
regarded  as  a  man  whose  business  in  staples  was  safe,  sure 
and  profitable,  but  the  man  who  buys  a  grocery  store 
today  may  find  himself  tomorrow  in  despairing  competi- 
tion with  a  syndicate  that  operates  a  chain  of  two  hundred 
groceries.  The  department  store  has  made  a  similar 
change  of  outlook  not  in  one  but  in  many  kinds  of  shops. 
And  the  more  enormous  the  concern  the  smaller  the 
proportion  of  individual  employees  who  can  distinguish 
themselves. 

The  professions  have  long  been  overcrowded,  partly 
because  our  academic  courses  distinctly  have  these  as 
their  goal,  partly  because  of  the  attractiveness  of  their 
noble  work,  partly  perhaps  because  they  give  social  stand- 
ing, clean  clothes  and  hands  and  an  intellectual  life. 
But  changes  are  constantly  occurring  in  these  as  voca- 
tional opportunities.  In  engineering,  for  example,  the 
tasks  are  so  inviting  and  have  been  so  lucrative  that 
technological  courses  have  multiplied  in  many  of  our 
higher  institutions  of  learning,  and  the  examination  of 
high-school  boys  as  to  their  aspirations  will  often  reveal 
that  two-thirds  of  them  look  forward  to  some  branch  of 
this  diversified  calling.  But  in  the  State  of  Wisconsin  it 
was  recently  estimated  that  if  all  those  who  are  now  in  the 
schools  of  that  State  who  look  forward  to  that  profession 
should  enter  it,  Wisconsin  would  have  enough  engineers 
within  the  next  five  years  to  fill  all  the  engineering  posi- 
tions in  that  State  for  the  next  century.  Medicine, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  crowded  of  professions,  is  becom- 
ing increasingly  difficult  to  enter.  The  ordinary  boy, 
without  special  capital  or  influence,  must  count  somehow 
on  seven  or  eight  years  of  training  beyond  high  school, 
two  years  in  a  hospital  and  from  three  to  ten  years  of  bare 
self-support  afterward  before  he  is  satisfactorily  adjusted 
in  his  life  work.  The  lure  of  riches  made  in  commercial 
adventure  is  today  drawing  college  men  away  from  the 
learned  professions.     The  youth  hears  of  great  fortunes 


VOCATIONAL  OPPORTUNITIES  239 

rapidly  accumulated  by  young  men  who  have  friends  in 
Wall  Street ;  he  learns  that  the  world  will  give  a  man  who 
can  successfully  exploit  a  patent  medicine  more  than  it 
will  one  who  makes  an  important  scientific  discovery;  he 
is  told  that  advertising  will  do  wonders  with  a  worthless 
novel  or  magazine  or  toilet  preparation,  and  his  whole 
sense  of  values  becomes  obscured. 

Mistakes  That  Young  People  Make 
Pathetic  are  some  of  the  mistakes  that  young  people 
make,  as  the  result  of  ignorance  or  misguided  inclination. 
Little  can  they  know  at  the  best  of  these  sweeping  gusts 
and  eddies  of  the  industrial  world.  The  hope,  the  self- 
confidence,  the  desires  of  youth  carry  them  into  careers 
that  have  no  outlet  and  no  future.  Let  us  enumerate 
just  a  few  of  the  more  common  mistakes. 

The  public  school  curriculum  offers  before  the  four- 
teenth year  almost  nothing  that  has  direct  bearing  upon 
any  of  the  common  occupations.  The  first  year  in  high 
school  is  usually  distinctly  scholastic.  The  result  is  that 
at  about  thirteen  or  fourteen  there  is  a  veritable  emigra- 
tion from  the  schools.  From  one-half  to  two-thirds  of  our 
school  children  drop  out  by  the  eighth  grade,  only  one- 
tenth  finish  high  school  and  less  than  five  per  cent  go  to 
college.  In  districts  where  workingmen  live  and  in  States 
where  children  are  allowed  to  be  employed  at  fourteen 
that  age  is  traditionally  accepted  by  young  people  as  the 
time  when  they  will  go  to  work. 

Mangold  tells  us  of  the  vocational  future  of  those  who 
leave  school  too  early.  "  No  children  who  drop  out  of 
school  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  or  sixth  grades  can  hope  to 
have  acquired  direct  training  for  any  occupation  which 
they  may  enter;  the  seventh  and  eighth  grade  children 
may  acquire  a  little  manual  dexterity.  It  has  been  esti- 
mated that  ninety  per  cent  of  the  working  children  enter 
unskilled  occupations;  about  seven  per  cent  skilled  occu- 
pations of  low  grade;  perhaps  three  per  cent  enter  high- 
grade  occupations  which  promise  a  future."  Of  the  three 
per  cent,  however,  Mangold  reminds  us,  the  defects  of  the 


240       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

apprentice  system  are  such  that  many  are  allowed  to 
learn   a   trade   only   by   absorption   and  in   a   desultory 

manner. 

All  work  that  is  worth  while  pays  little  at  the  first. 
This  fact  is  not  apparent  to  the  boy  who  wants  spending 
money  or  the  girl  who  thinks  she  will  be  employed  only 
until  she  is  married.  Youth  is  not  patient,  and  has  not 
the  observation  or  experience  to  look  beyond  the  present 
or  the  circle  of  immediate  acquaintance  to  see  the  larger 
situation. 

Adjustments  That  Are  Needed 
The  life  waste  that  is  being  made  is  terrible.  As  Eli 
W.  Weaver  reminds  us,  the  State  does  not  permit  a  child's 
fortune  to  be  used  without  the  oversight  of  a  special  court, 
yet  it  permits  the  child  to  sell  his  time  and  ambition  with- 
out foresight  and  advice.  It  does  not  let  a  grocer  sell  a 
bottle  of  milk  without  its  supervision,  yet  it  stands  idly 
by  while  a  young  man  or  boy  gives  the  most  precious 
years  of  his  life  without  opportunity  for  improvement  or 
prospects  of  advancement.  Evidently  some  important 
adjustments  are  necessary.     Some  of  them  are  these: 

1.  The  school  must  adjust  itself  to  the  preparation  of 
every  class,  not  the  professional  class  chiefly,  for  life. 

2.  The  child,  the  individual  child,  must  be  more  care- 
fully studied,  that  he  may  be  adapted  to  the  right  course 
of  study  for  his  development,  that  he  may  be  placed  in 
the  right  occupation,  that  he  may  be  traced  even  after 
he  has  entered  an  occupation  to  be  sure  that  his  work 
treats  him  fairly,  that  he  is  really  suited  to  it,  and  that  he 
has  opportunity  for  promotion. 

3.  The  placement  agencies  must  be  adjusted.  Today 
too  often  the  child  determines  his  future  with  little  con- 
ference with  his  parents  or  teachers;  he  depends  upon  his 
young  friends  or  an  employment  bureau  for  his  first  job; 
he  considers  but  a  narrow  range  of  opportunities,  and  he 
moves  frequently  and  restlessly  from  one  place  to  another. 
Placement  must  be  taken  away  from  commercialized  or 
ignorant  hands.     It  must  be  taken  up  by  the  school  and 


VOCATIONAL  OPPORTUNITIES  241 

the  home.  It  must  be  reconsidered,  not  from  the  view- 
point of  the  first  wage,  but  from  that  of  the  child's  largest 
future. 

4.  The  vocations  themselves  must  be  readjusted.  Ap- 
prenticeship must  be  revived.  Profit-sharing  must  be 
encouraged.  Unemployment  must  be  reduced  not  only 
by  educating  more  employable  young  people,  but  by  large, 
perhaps  national,  schemes  of  supervising  industry,  mov- 
ing about  labor  where  there  is  work,  and  insurance  against 
unemployment. 

Our  present  study  gives  room  only  for  considering  what 
training  and  guidance  can  do  to  solve  vocational  problems. 

Reading  References 

The  situation  that  the  youth  who  is  entering  upon  life  today  faces  is 
outlined  in  Snedden's  "  The  Problem  of  Vocational  Education  "  and  more 
briefly  in  Munroe's  "New  Demands  in  Education,"  Chapters  I-VII.  The 
relation  of  industry  to  child  labor  is  shown  in  Nearing's  "  The  Child 
Labor  Problem  "  and  in  Mangold's  "  Problems  of  Child  Welfare,"  pp. 
227-344. 

Weaver's  two  books,  "  Profitable  Vocations  for  Boys  "  and  "  Profitable 
Vocations  for  Girls,"  give  fair  statements  about  the  attractions  of  the  dif- 
ferent callings.  Specific  studies  of  different  trades  have  been  made  by 
the  Vocation  Bureau  of  Boston.  Laselle  and  Wiley's  "  Vocations  for 
Girls  "  and  Perkins'  "Vocations  for  the  Trained  Woman  "  are  detailed 
studies  of  the  opportunities  that  exist  for  girls. 

The  National  Child  Labor  Committee,  105  East  Twenty-Second  Street, 
New  York,  is  glad  to  furnish  statements  about  the  local  child  labor  laws, 
and  deserves  support  in  its  endeavor  to  save  the  youth  of  the  nation  from 
exploitation. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
VOCATIONAL   EDUCATION 

In  the  great  field  of  training  children  for  their  places 
in  the  world  there  are  yet  many  disputed  and  unsolved 
questions.  This  chapter  can  only  state  the  general  trend 
of  the  best  educational  ideals  of  today. 

Vocational  education  is  based  upon  the  recognition  of 
certain  adjustments  that  are  needed  in  the  school  and  in 
society,  some  of  which  were  enumerated  at  the  end  of  the 
last  chapter.  Certain  other  considerations  are  involved 
in  it. 

1.  Vocational  education  must  be  kept  democratic. 
The  term  "  industrial  education,"  which  has  been  pro- 
posed as  a  substitute,  is  unsatisfactory  because  it  suggests 
that  the  only  vocations  in  which  the  schools  are  inter- 
ested are  those  that  involve  toil  with  the  hands.  The 
proposal  to  create  separate  school  boards  and  depart- 
ments of  supervision  for  vocational  schools  is  unfortunate, 
because  it  makes  a  cleavage  between  those  who  are  pre- 
paring for  the  professions  and  those  who  are  preparing 
for  the  trades,  and  makes  difficult  the  transfer  of  pupils 
who  are  discovered  to  belong  elsewhere  from  one  type  of 
school  to  the  other.  No  education  is  democratic  that 
gives  any  private  interest  any  kind  of  control.  Close  co- 
operation of  schools  with  shops  is  good,  but  not  control 
of  schools  by  manufacturers. 

2.  Vocational  education  must  regard  girls  as  much  as 
it  does  boys.  We  must  accept  women  as  a  large  and  prob- 
ably increasing  factor  in  the  industrial  world.  If,  as  is 
said  to  be  the  case,  women  spend  eight  of  the  nine  billions 
of  dollars  that  are  spent  in  this  country  every  year,  we 
must  in  our  schools  regard  the  education  of  those  who 
shall  spend  as  well  as  that  of  those  who  shall  earn.  We 
have  also  with  young  women  the  difficult  but  important 

242 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  243 

problem,   a  double  education,   for  employment  and  for 
home-making. 

3.  Vocational  education  must  consider  the  man  more 
than  the  job.     Vocational  education  might  simply  feed 
"  hands  "    to    corporations.     It    might    train    industrial 
bond-slaves.     It  ought  to  train  men  who  are  adaptable 
as  well  as  specifically  efficient.     But,  particularly  because 
so   many   occupations   are   necessarily   monotonous   and 
because  so  many  youth  are  evidently  adapted  only  for 
such  kind  of  work,  it  seems  necessary  that  young  people 
should  be  educated  for  avocations  as  well  as  for  vocations, 
for  the  wise  use  of  their  leisure  as  well  as  their  working 
hours.     Both  the  rights  of  the  worker  and  some  indica- 
tions in  employers  of  a  fresh  appreciation  of  breadth  in 
the  worker  persuade  us  that  culture  and  vocation  are  not 
mutually  exclusive  words,  but  that  vocational  education 
must  include  culture.     There  is,  of  course,  a  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  what  culture  means.     Thorndike  gives  at 
least    five    separate    definitions,    of    which    the    German 
"  Kultur  "  includes  but  one.     He  finally  settles  upon  one: 
"  It  should  perhaps  be  defined  as  training  for  the  imper- 
sonal pleasures  —  the  unselfish  satisfactions  which  involve 
no    necessary    deprivation    for    any    other    man  ■ —  those 
equitable,   stainless  wants  whose  increase  is  seen  to  be 
one  main  element  of  the  aim  of  education."     Such  culture 
in  a  democratic  state  should  be  a  right  of  every  child. 

The  Scope  of  Vocational  Education 
In  making  plans  for  public  vocational  education  there 
seems  to  be  substantial  agreement  as  to  its  scope. 

So-called  pre-vocational  education  should  not  begin 
before  the  seventh  grade.  Every  child  needs  thorough 
training  in  the  technique  of  learning,  in  knowing  how  to 
read,  to  write,  to  make  simple  computations,  and  to 
express  himself  in  simple  ways  with  his  hands. 

After  the  sixth  grade  there  should  come  differentiations 
in  courses  that  shall  open  up  to  the  child  the  great  divi- 
sions of  human  toil  and  shall  lay  the  foundations  of  prac- 
tice in  their  elements.     This  differentiation  seizes  upon 


244       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

the  child's  interests  a  year  or  two  before  the  child  can 
legally  go  to  work,  tends  to  occupy  him  profitably  during 
those  years  from  fourteen  to  sixteen  which  are  of  most 
value  in  preparation  and  of  least  value  to  industry  and 
gives  opportunity  for  some  of  those  methods  of  co-opera- 
tion between  the  school  and  the  shop,  which  are  to  be 
described,  by  which  the  youth  may  gain  skill  as  well  as 
knowledge. 

The  ambition  of  vocational  education  is  to  retain  all 
young  people  under  some  kind  of  technical  training  until 
they  are  at  least  eighteen.  It  is  thought  that  not  only  is 
this  the  earliest  age  at  which  a  young  man  can  show  the 
maturity  as  well  as  the  skill  that  will  enable  him  to  take 
a  position,  but  that  it  is  as  soon  as  his  capabilities  are 
sufficiently  manifest  to  place  him  wisely. 

The  ideal  vocational  education  will  not  drop  the  youth 
after  he  has  left  school,  but  will  assist  in  placing  and  re- 
placing him  until  he  has  successfully  solved  his  life 
problem. 

Methods  of  Vocational  Education 
Following  are  some  of  the  present-day  plans  for  voca- 
tional  training.     Many  of  them  are  summarized  from 
Taylor. 

1.  Vocational  emphasis  in  the  elementary  grades.  This 
is  being  made  in  two  ways, —  by  utilizing  the  constructive 
instinct  of  children  in  real  projects  and  by  making  simple 
studies  of  actual  industries.  Manual  training  in  the  earli- 
est grades  has  of  late  years  departed  from  formal  method 
to  the  creation  of  objects  of  real  value  for  play  or  other 
home  use.  Drawing  and  cabinet  work  and  metal  work 
and  printing  have  found  their  way  down  as  low  as  the 
sixth  grade.  Children  are  being  shown  something  of 
such  industries  as  gardening,  dairying,  textile  industries, 
transportation,  etc. 

2.  The  so-called  "  6+6  "  plan  of  division  has  been 
brought  forward  in  the  administering  of  the  grades. 
This  means  that  the  first  six  grades  are  reserved  for  gen- 
eral training,   that  instead  of  accepting  the  gaps  and 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  245 

losses  at  the  door  of  the  high  school  a  six-year  vocational 
program  begins  after  the  general  preparation,  which  broad- 
ens out  into  technical  as  well  as  academic  courses. 

3.  Whether  the  6+6  plan  is  formally  accepted  or  not,  we 
are  seeing  the  introduction  of  the  "  intermediate  school." 
This  school  is  intended  to  come  effectively  as  an  antidote 
to  those  years  of  defection.  It  is  an  elementary  trade 
school,  emphasizing  in  a  pre-vocational  way  commerce, 
manual  arts  and  household  arts.  Such  schools  may  be 
publicly  or  privately  conducted.  The  commercial  high 
school  is  an  intermediate  school  of  the  highest  grade. 

4.  Part-time  schools.  Many  young  people  cannot 
afford  to  remain  in  school  unless  they  can  do  self-support- 
ing work.  Even  if  they  can  afford  this,  they  need  skill 
as  well  as  knowledge.  Some  who  are  getting  the  skill  in 
the  shop  find  the  knowledge  in  evening  and  correspondence 
courses.  But  for  those  who  are  yet  in  school  we  are  seeing 
an  ingenious  revival  of  the  apprentice  system  through 
plans  of  co-operation  between  schools  and  shops  by  which 
a  boy  works  part  of  his  time  at  the  bench  and  part  at  the 
desk.  Often  the  plan  is  made  practicable  by  dividing  the 
classes  into  pairs,  one  member  of  which  occupies  the  desk 
while  the  other  works  and  vice  versa.  These  plans  are 
winning  the  hearty  approval  of  employers  and  shop 
managers.  Corporations  themselves  are  opening  schools, 
whose  value  educationally  depends,  of  course,  on  whether 
they  train  young  people  for  more  than  the  mere  manipula- 
tions of  a  specialized  industry. 

These  new  developments  in  the  schools  affect  the  aca- 
demic students  indirectly  but  positively.  New  cultural 
values  are  being  sought  in  vocational  subjects,  of  which 
many  academic  students  avail  themselves.  Academic 
subjects  that  bear  no  obvious  relation  to  real  life  are 
coming  up  for  fresh  valuation,  and  sometimes  are  being 
relegated  to  a  minor  prominence.  The  joy  and  serious- 
ness of  co-operative  work  in  the  shop  or  at  the  forge  tend 
to  counteract  the  laziness  and  dilettantism  of  the  recita- 
tion room.  And  since  the  endeavor  is  made  to  make 
transition  convenient  from  one  department  to  another, 


246        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

the  students  of  each  department  interact  upon  each  other. 

The  new  vocational  emphasis  is  not  disproportionate. 
Ninety-six  per  cent  of  American  workers  are  in  the  in- 
dustries and  commerce.  They  are  simply  coming  into 
their  own.  The  emphasis  is  not  misplaced.  Vocational 
education  has  always  existed,  but  it  has  existed  too  far 
up.  We  had  colleges  from  the  beginning,  and  they  were 
vocational  schools  for  the  professions.  We  had  institutes 
of  technology  before  we  had  trade  schools,  and  thus  edu- 
cated the  captains  before  the  privates  of  industry. 

Vocational  schools  are  not  only  meeting  a  larger  range 
of  need,  but  they  are  making  popular  education  a  fact  as 
well  as  a  name.  We  have  for  many  years  talked  of  "  our 
system  of  universal  education,"  but  it  was  a  misnomer  so 
long  as  the  people  were  not  getting  it.  When  twenty- 
five  per  cent  of  our  population  only  get  far  enough  in 
school  to  "read,  write  and  figure,"  when  "the  average 
American  is  a  sixth-grader,"  when  only  one-tenth  finish 
the  public  school  system,  we  have  not  real  popular  educa- 
tion. Our  high  schools,  which  cost  proportionately  two 
or  three  times  as  much  to  maintain  as  the  lower  grades, 
are  reserved  largely  for  the  children  of  the  prosperous. 
So  our  public  school  system  is  undemocratic  as  well  as 
exclusive.  Vocational  education  tends  to  change  this 
condition.  It  makes  it  practicable  and  profitable  for  the 
workingman's  son  to  stay  in  school  until  he  is  ready  for 
life.  It  also  performs  the  special  service  of  showing  that 
generally  the  so-called  dullard,  the  retarded  pupil,  the 
truant,  is  simply  the  child  who  has  been  misunderstood 
and  misplaced. 

The  social  outreach  of  vocational  education  is  not  yet 
fully  apprehended.  We  can  already  see  that  something 
is  going  to  come  of  institutions  where  youths  work  to- 
gether which  did 'not  come  of  institutions  where  each 
recited  an  individual  lesson.  From  a  school  where  the 
ideal  is  efficiency  something  different  is  to  come  from  what 
came  from  one  whose  ideal  was  abstract  culture.  The 
youth  who  goes  to  school  with  an  interest  is  going  to  be  a 
different  man  from  the  one  who  stays  because  he  was 


VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  247 

sent.     We   can   see   this  —  that   these   prospects  are   all 
socially  hopeful. 

From  the  commercial  standpoint  reinforcement  has 
come  to  the  new  educational  ideal.  The  industrial  or- 
ganization of  Germany  has  been  a  lesson  to  us.  It  is 
stated  that  Germany  has  two  million  skilled  artisans, 
and  America  only  twenty -five  thousand.  As  someone  has 
put  it,  "  America  is  a  stevedore,"  simply  loading  its  crude 
materials  at  its  own  water's  edge  for  the  men  of  other 
nations  to  manufacture  into  objects  of  utility  and  beauty. 
Our  employers'  associations  and  our  trades  unions  alike 
are  beginning  to  ask  for  the  renewal  of  the  apprentice 
system  and  thus  are  adding  the  shop  school  to  the  public 
school  as  complementary  to  a  national  educational 
scheme. 

The  Need  of  Leadership 

Just  now  there  is  a  pressing  need  for  vocational  teachers. 
A  new  type  of  man  is  required  and  an  unusual  one.  He 
must  know  the  technique  of  his  calling  from  actual  prac- 
tice; he  must  have  the  ability  to  interest  his  pupils  and 
to  explain  things  clearly;  he  must  be  a  man  of  character 
and  scholarship. 

The  apprentice  system  is  not  going  to  come  back  with- 
out effort.  There  are  still  concerns  that  believe  it  to  be 
more  profitable  to  limit  the  work  of  their  employees  to 
particular  operations.  There  are  trades  unions  that  in- 
sist on  limiting  the  number  of  apprentices.  Journeymen 
are  often  unwilling  to  instruct  apprentices.  The  relations 
between  capital  and  labor  are  not  yet  so  friendly  as  to 
make  all  these  adjustments  easy.  There  are  even  ex- 
tremists who  think  the  fruits  of  the  earth  belong  to  all 
men  alike  whether  they  have  patiently  and  conscientiously 
prepared  to  earn  them  or  not.  The  desire  to  get  one's 
share  takes  the  place  of  willingness  to  do  one's  share.  A 
public  sentiment  must  be  created  by  leaders,  if  these 
adjustments  are  to  be  made. 

Vocational  training  is  expensive.  It  is  less  expensive 
to  the  nation  than  to  get  along  without  it.  But  this  is 
not  always  clear  to  a  local  school  board.     It  is  propor- 


248       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

tionately  more  expensive  and  less  satisfactory  in  the 
country  than  in  the  city,  and  yet  it  is  needed  in  the 
country  as  much  as  in  the  city.  It  is  a  gospel  that  must 
be  preached,  and  it  is  one  worthy  to  be  preached  by 
ministers  and  by  Christian  laymen.  Some  country 
ministers  have  already  begun  to  make  the  deserts  of 
country  life  to  blossom  like  the  rose,  by  bringing  voca- 
tional training  in  agriculture  and  household  science  close 
to  the  farm  boys  and  girls.  This  kind  of  influence  must 
be  extended  more  broadly.  Our  national  Department 
of  Agriculture  is  taking  the  lead  in  this  direction.  Through 
its  various  achievement  clubs  it  is  stimulating  the  co- 
operative endeavors  of  farm  boys  and  girls;  these  in  turn 
lead  toward  the  desire  for  a  higher  education  in  the  voca- 
tions of  farming  and  farm  housekeeping ;  and  the  work  of 
such  vocational  colleges  is  constantly  supplemented  by 
the  widely  circulated  results  of  agricultural  research 
among  those  who  are  actually  at  work  upon  the  land. 

The  Master  said,  "  What  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange 
for  his  life?  "  He  had  in  mind  not  mere  existence,  but 
all  that  makes  life  worth  while.  In  this  complex  and 
difficult  age  of  ours  He  could  point  to  no  task  more  chal- 
lenging to  his  followers  than  that  of  making  young  life 
everywhere  more  rich  and  capable. 

Reading  References 

A  veritable  flood  of  books  upon  vocational  education  is  upon  us. 
Kerschensteiner's  "  Three  Lectures  on  Vocational  Training  "  sets  forth 
the  German  method.  Person's  "  Industrial  Education  "  and  Russell  and 
Bonser's  book  of  the  same  title  outline  the  latest  theory  and  practice  in 
this  field.  King's  "  Social  Aspects  of  Education  "  endeavors  to  put  voca- 
tional education  in  its  proper  social  setting.  Thorndike's  "  Education," 
pp.  23-2G,  270-275,  tersely  does  the  same. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE 

We  have  already  noted  some  of  the  reasons  why  a 
child  or  young  person  is  incompetent  to  plan  his  own  future. 
Of  these,  three  are  most  conspicuous:  The  child  does  not 
know  what  the  available  occupations  are  or  much  of  any- 
thing about  them;  he  knows  next  to  nothing  about  work 
or  his  own  ability  to  do  it ;  he  is  not  yet  mature  enough 
so  that  his  talents  are  fully  manifest.  There  are  also 
certain  ideals  and  longings,  which  are  consciously  or  un- 
consciously cherished,  that  commonly  influence  a  youth 
at  this  critical  period  of  choice,  often  disastrously. 

One  of  these  is  the  desire  for  immediate  reward.  Youth 
is  not  patient  or  foresighted.  "  A  fifty-cent  piece  now 
looks  bigger  than  the  prospect  of  learning  a  trade." 
This  means  that  thousands  of  bright  young  people  at  once 
settle  down  to  lifelong  employment  within  reach  of  their 
hands  instead  of  that  which  might  be  within  reach  of 
their  brains,  if  they  were  trained. 

Coupled  with  this  is  intense  self-confidence,  combined 
with  the  irrepressible  hopefulness  of  youth.  The  boy  may 
know  that  his  untrained  father  at  fifty  is  a  failure,  but 
he  cannot  conceive  at  twenty  that  he  himself  can  ever 
fail.  So,  as  the  manager  of  an  employment  bureau  said, 
young  people  are  every  day  offering  themselves  for  work 
who  "  know  nothing  and  want  to  be  paid  for  it." 

The  desires  of  young  people  limit  the  range  of  their 
choices  in  many  directions.  City-bred  youth  think  life 
unendurable  in  the  country  and  country  youth  want  to 
get  into  the  city.  Both  feel  an  aversion  to  work  with  the 
hands,  particularly  if  it  involves  a  workingman's  garb. 
"  Office  work  "  therefore  makes  a  strong  appeal,  regard- 
less of  its  real  values,  and  work  in  a  store  answers  the  same 
desire. 

249 


250       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

One  motive,  creditable  in  itself,  may  have  through  lack 
of  guidance  or  opportunity  a  tendency  to  limitation.  It 
is  ambition.  It  may  be  expressed  in  one  of  several  ways: 
"  I  don't  want  to  be  taking  orders  from  another  nian  all 
my  life."  "  I  want  to  get  where  somebody  else  will  be 
working  for  me."  "  I  want  to  be  at  the  top."  Or  it  is 
put  in  the  pathetic  words  of  a  hard-working  parent:  "  We 
don't  want  our  children  always  to  have  such  a  hard  time 
as. we  have  had."  Such  ambition  is  creditable,  but  if  it  is 
undirected  it  may  be  fruitless.  That  it  is  general  is  indi- 
cated by  the  enormous  amount  of  correspondence-school 
advertising,  always  illustrated  by  pictures  of  two  men, 
one  in  working  clothes  with  a  hang-dog  expression,  and 
the  other  in  a  business  suit  giving  an  order  to  the  first. 
Every  young  man  wants  to  be  sitting  in  that  office  chair, 
commanding.  But  there  are  difficulties.  There  may  be 
lack  of  ability.  There  may  be  unwillingness  to  plod  or 
to  use  the  discoverable  and  available  means  of  prepara- 
tion. The  concern  into  which  the  youth  finds  his  way 
may  be  notorious  for  using  up  men  and  then  throwing 
them  aside,  or  his  particular  work  may  be  one  that  offers 
no  apprenticeship  and  gives  no  training. 

Again,  in  this  age  of  youth's  independence,  no  matter 
how  wise  or  foreseeing  the  parent,  it  is  the  young  people 
themselves  who  usually  decide  what  they  will  do ;  and  even 
the  wisest  parent,  if  the  youth  be  determined,  hesitates 
to  deflect  him,  thinking  that  the  determination  itself  may 
prove  the  indication  of  aptitude  or  the  motive  power  for 
perseverance. 

Finally,  there  is  a  factor  which  affects  vocational  choice 
in  the  most  subtle  ways.  Many  men  today  do  not  work 
for  the  sake  of  their  work,  but  for  the  sake  of  their  leisure. 
They  work  not  to  save,  but  to  spend.  The  monotony  of 
much  toil  is  such  that  the  worker  can  ask  no  pleasure  out 
of  it  except  the  wage  at  the  end  of  the  week.  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  vocations  that  are  followed  by  the 
poor  and  ignorant.  The  child  of  this  class  grows  up  with 
no  expectation  that  his  work  can  in  itself  be  a  joy,  but  he 
has  just  as  keen  a  desire  to  get  pleasure  out  of  life  as  a 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  251 

rich  man's  son.  What  does  he  care  about  the  nature  of 
his  work,  so  long  as  it  pays  for  his  pleasures  ?  The  thought 
that  work  is  a  curse  is  as  old  as  the  Book  of  Genesis  and  is 
cherished  by  people  in  every  level  of  society. 

The  Interest  of  Society  in  Vocational  Guidance 
Society  has  an  important  stake  in  this  matter.  It 
cannot  afford  to  waste  its  chief  asset,  men.  If  it  be  true 
that  Germany  has  two  million  trained  artisans  and 
America  but  twenty-five  thousand,  society  knows  that 
its  material  future  is  in  peril.  If  it  be  true  that  only 
twenty-five  per  cent  of  boys  and  girls  who  go  to  work 
between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  sixteen  ever  get  into  any 
employment  that  is  worth  while,  society  cannot  afford  to 
allow  that  condition  to  continue.  Society  knows  that  if 
a  large  proportion  of  its  citizenship  can  offer  to  the 
labor  world  nothing  but  brute  strength,  they  will  be  use- 
less and  helpless  when  that  strength  is  gone,  unemploy- 
ment will  always  be  a  critical  fact,  and  old  age  pensions 
will  be  loaded  upon  the  shoulders  of  those  who  were 
trained  and  are  successful.  Genius  is  just  as  likely  to  be 
born  among  the  poor  as  the  rich,  and  society  cannot 
afford  to  lose  those  masters  of  the  arts,  those  inventors 
and  leaders  who  were  throttled  before  they  ever  came 
to  the  light.  Men  will  always  seek  goals  beyond  their 
daily  work  and  some  men  will  never  see  much  further 
than  their  wages,  but  society  cannot  be  composed  of  a 
happy  citizenship  if  the  joy  of  artisanship  perishes. 

The  Aims  of  Vocational  Guidance 
Before  coming  to  the  special  agencies  of  guidance,  let 
us  ask  ourselves  the  general  aims  which  every  agency 
should  hold  in  view.     They  are  perhaps  four. 

First,  is  the  study  of  the  nature  and  abilities  of  the 
child.  What  we  perceive  of  the  limitations  of  psychology 
and  of  our  knowledge  of  the  human  being  who  is  best 
known  to  us  suggests  how  appalling  this  task  must  be,  in 
the  case  of  a  child  who  does  not  understand  himself,  who 
cannot  clearly  state  what  he  does  know,  and  who  is  so  far 


252       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

only  in  a  formative  condition.  Yet  this  task  must  be 
undertaken,  with  the  use  of  every  process  of  examination 
and  the  co-operation  of  everybody  who  knows,  if  we  are 
to  take  the  first  step  in  guidance. 

In  studying  the  child  we  naturally  turn  first  to  what- 
ever he  can  reveal  by  careful  self -study.  It  may  not  be 
much,  but  it  will  be  earnest  and  sincere.  His  desires  will 
be  of  interest.  The  vocational  aspirations  of  children 
seem  to  be  affected  in  the  earlier  years  by  their  imagina- 
tions, through  what  attracts  them  in  books  and  in  life. 
In  a  certain  grammar  school,  for  instance,  the  pupils, 
who  were  about  eleven  years  of  age,  when  asked  what 
they  wished  to  be  in  the  world  responded  as  follows: 

14%  bookkeepers 

12%  policemen 

7%  artists 

51%  teachers 

One  fancies  that  he  can  define  this  situation  pretty  clearly. 
The  boys,  of  course,  were  going  to  be  the  policemen,  and 
some  of  them  bookkeepers  and  artists.  The  girls  were 
going  to  be  the  teachers  and  a  few  of  them  bookkeepers  and 
artists.  The  element  of  hero-worship  was  obvious,  in 
the  favorite  teacher  and  the  stalwart  corner  "  cop." 
The  desire  for  an  occupation  that  involved  good  clothes 
was  universal  in  these  choices.  There  was  a  feeling  for 
self-expression  in  the  artistic  longing.  It  cannot  be  said 
that  these  preferences  were  very  significant  or  prophetic. 
In  high  school,  as  we  noted  in  another  chapter,  vocations 
that  have  the  appeal  of  financial  reward  and  of  gentility 
are  strongly  considered.  The  writer  recently  questioned 
personally  about  a  hundred  boys  in  high  schools  in  market 
centers  of  a  farming  region  in  the  Middle  West.  Many 
were  going  to  be  farmers,  but  practically  all  the  rest  would 
become  engineers,  lawyers  and  doctors. 

When  one  tries  to  get  closer  to  a  child's  self-knowledge 
than  his  whims  or  conventional  desires,  the  task"  is  still 
difficult.  Prof.  Frank  Parsons,  the  father  of  vocational 
guidance,   devised  some  ingenious  questionnaires  which 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  253 

an  applicant  might  fill  out  for  self -measurement.  So  far 
as  they  involve  the  child's  family  and  school  record  they 
are  valuable  and  they  are  interesting  as  they  reveal  some 
of  his  tastes,  habits  and  ways  of  looking  at  life.  But  they 
do  not  go  very  deeply  into  self -analysis.  The  writer  has 
had  a  little  experience  with  a  question  sheet  modelled 
after  one  that  was  devised  by  Prof.  Herman  Schneider  of 
the  University  of  Cincinnati.  At  one  point  the  endeavor 
was  made  to  discover  the  temperament  of  the  individual 
by  asking  him  to  class  himself  in  one  of  two  exclusive 
categories.  (For  instance,  "  Are  you  a  leader,  or  a  fol- 
lower? Are  you  quick  to  initiate,  or  patient  to  follow 
up?  ")  In  several  cases  the  confident  youth  gave  to  all 
the  alternatives  the  improbable  reply  that  he  was  both. 
Evidently,  as  Professor  Parsons  and  others  have  acknowl- 
edged, such  sheets  are  of  use  only  as  they  are  reviewed 
patiently  in  personal  conference  between  the  counsellor 
and  the  youth. 

Of  course,  better  than  personal  memories  are  carefully 
kept  school  records,  and  these,  if  kept  throughout  the 
grades,  and  if  they  concern  the  right  sorts  of  efficiency, 
are  extremely  important  as  measurements  of  development 
of  intelligence  and  power.  They  may  be  used  with  cau- 
tion for  prophecy  as  well  as  history. 

Psychological  tests  are  being  devised  which  already  in 
certain  callings  are  definitive.  At  Harvard  an  ingenious 
device  has  been  invented  which  has  delimited  from  the 
calling  of  motormen  a  large  number  of  individuals,  many 
of  them  able  for  other  callings,  whose  perceptive  and 
inhibitory  powers  were  not  immediate  enough  to  insure 
quick  action  in  emergencies  at  the  motor.  Tests  for  color 
blindness  have,  of  course,  long  been  applied  in  railroad 
engineering.  All  such  tests  are  negative  and  show  only 
what  an  individual  cannot  do.  In  the  enormous  diversity 
of  callings  they  can  apparently  have  but  limited  appli- 
cability. 

The  vocational  counsellor  does  not  do  his  full  duty 
unless  he  seizes  upon  every  shred  of  evidence  which  co- 
operation can  bring  within  his  reach.     He  makes  a  close 


254        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

and  sympathetic  study  of  the  child's  own  experience  and 
knowledge  of  himself;  he  not  only  studies  the  school 
records,  but  he  confers  with  the  school  teacher;  he  endeav- 
ors to  consult  carefully  with  the  parents ;  he  uses  any  testi- 
mony that  may  be  given  by  any  employer  who  has  watched 
the  child  at  work. 

The  next  step  is  to  discuss  the  child's  preparation. 
"Vocational  guidance,"  says  Meyer  Bloomfield,  "is 
educational  guidance."  The  presumption  is  that  the 
*  child  is  not  yet  prepared.  Guidance  is  chiefly  for  the 
purpose  of  telling  him  how  to  get  ready.  The  counsellor 
wants  both  to  develop  his  capacity  as  far  and  as  long  as 
possible  and  also  to  leave  the  doors  of  opportunity  and  of 
final  choice  open  as  late  as  possible,  until  the  full  capacity 
has  revealed  itself.  Few  pupils  know  the  preparational 
resources  of  the  varied  schools  of  their  own  city.  Few 
indeed  know  what  the  next  year  or  years  in  their  own 
school  can  give.  There  is  still  less  knowledge  of  prep- 
arational opportunities  in  continuation  schools,  appren- 
ticeships, store  schools,  etc. 

A  third  task  is  the  study  of  industrial  opportunities. 
So  essential  was  this  seen  to  be  that  our  first  Vocational 
Bureau,  the  one  in  Boston,  has  made  this,  rather  than 
individual  counsel,  its  most  conspicuous  achievement. 
Employers  themselves  had  never  known  the  situation  in 
their  own  industries  until  the  facts  were  pointed  out  to 
them.  But  to  the  }^outh  who  is  deciding,  the  nature  of 
preparation,  the  financial  rewards,  the  working  condi- 
tions, the  steadiness  or  fluctuation  of  demand  for  labor, 
are  all  of  the  deepest  import.  The  fact,  for  instance, 
that  between  sixty  and  eighty  per  cent  of  those  who 
leave  school  at  fourteen  drift  into  occupations  that  have 
t  no  outlet,  that  at  least  a  third  of  these  change  work  sev- 
eral times  during  the  first  year,  seldom  to  their  advantage, 
and  that  a  very  small  proportion  ever  even  enter  occupa- 
tions which  afford  an  income  sufficient  to  establish  a 
decent  home,  is  enough  to  cause  any  young  person  to  make 
whatever  personal  sacrifice  is  needful  in  order  to  rise 
above  such  a  destiny. 


VOCATIONAL   GUIDANCE  255 

Then  comes  to  the  vocational  counsellor  the  task  of 
placing  the  individual  with  satisfaction  to  himself  and 
his  employer.  This  may  mean  placing  and  replacing 
him,  tracing  him  from  position  to  position,  taking  up 
afresh  with  him  his  whole  situation,  watching  the  effect 
upon  his  work  of  his  habits,  his  recreations,  his  marriage, 
his  home  life,  etc.  The  counsellor  is  thus  not  only  guide, 
but  should  be  lifelong  philosopher  and  friend. 

The  Agencies  of  Vocational  Guidance 
This  work  naturally  started  in  the  schools.  Here  were 
the  people  who  knew  and  were  interested.  In  Brooklyn 
there  was  a  student  aid  committee  of  volunteer  teachers; 
in  Boston  the  schools  availed  themselves  of  the  aid  of  the 
Vocation  Bureau  and  its  affiliated  institutions.  We  are 
evidently  soon  to  have  men  and  women  set  apart,  in  close 
relation  with  the  school  system,  for  this  specific  mission. 
Since  vocational  guidance  is  different  from  and  involves 
much  more  than  an  employment  bureau,  the  work  should 
not  be  commercialized  and  it  should  be  retained  as  a 
proper  part  of  the  educational  system. 

There  seems  to  be  opportunity  for  the  church  to  do 
something  in  this  field.  There  is,  of  course,  danger  of 
working  with  zeal  rather  than  discretion.  Since  the 
ideal  counsellor  should  have  had  industrial  as  well  as 
educational  experience,  the  minister  who  has  had  neither 
is  likely  to  be  an  impractical  and  sometimes  dangerous 
idealist.  But  what  minister,  Sunday-school  teacher,  club 
and  camp  leader  all  together  know  about  a  boy  or  girl  is 
of  great  value  to  any  vocational  counsellor,  and  the 
church  has  the  opportunity  to  convey  and  conserve  those 
noble  and  generous  motives  which  ought  to  underlie  every 
life  choice. 

Back  to  the  home,  however,  comes  the  deepest  duty 
and  the  finest  opportunity.  It  can  follow  the  child's 
development  with  the  most  minute  and  tender  care.  It 
can  afford  home  opportunities  for  play,  occupation  and 
financial  experience  that  are  valuable  tests  of  capability. 
It  can  place  before  the  child  for  regular  reading  periodi- 


256       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

cals  of  popular  science  and  industry  and  books  that  tell 
of  actual  life  in  the  world's  callings.  It  can  bring  in  as 
guests  men  who  are  doing  noble  work  for  others.  It  can 
encourage  summer-time  experiments  which  may  determine 
the  life  interest.  None  but  the  home  can  so  tactfully 
show  the  child  the  gap  that  may  exist  between  his  admira- 
tions and  his  endowments.  Almost  all  youth  are  poets 
at  some  time  or  other  but,  while  we  may  crave  that  they 
remain  poets  so  far  as  appreciation  is  concerned  as  long 
as  they  live,  somebody  has  to  prove  to  many  children  that 
writing  poetry  is  not  to  be  their  life  work.  The  home 
only  can  exalt  the  durable  satisfactions  of  life.  The 
home  has  to  remind  its  children  that  money  is  not  the 
only  criterion  of  success.  "  The  discovery  of  truth  and 
the  bearing  of  worthy  children,"  as  Thomdike  reminds 
us,  "  the  two  things  most  essential  to  the  world's  welfare, 
are  as  a  rule  not  paid  for  at  all."  Tne  home,  too,  has  the 
opportunity  to  discover  possibilities  that  even  the  school 
may  never  find.  Some  of  the  courses  of  study  that  make 
men  are  not  examinable.  The  Christian  home  alone  can 
teach  its  children  that,  in  the  decision  of  a  calling,  a  rela- 
tion is  being  discussed  that  is  not  only  between  ability 
and  the  task,  between  work  and  leisure,  between  man  and 
man,  but  that  is  between  man  and  God.  "  Is  Life  a 
Career  or  a  Mission?  "  was  the  title  of  a  now-forgotten 
tract.  The  question  is  still  pertinent.  To  the  young 
Christian  life  is  a  mission  more  than  a  career.  The 
prayer  and  choice  of  the  home  and  of  the  youth  who  is 
preparing  to  live  should  be: 

"  To  serve  the  present  age, 
My  calling  to  fulfil, 
Oh,  may  it  all  my  powers  engage 
To  do  my  Master's  will." 

Reading  References 
Frank  Parsons'  "  Choosing  a  Vocation  "  describes  the  interesting  work 
of  counsel  inaugurated  by  this  pioneer.  Bloomfield's  "  Youth,  School 
and  Vocation  "  tells  how  this  work  was  continued.  Davis'  "  Vocational 
and  Moral  Guidance,"  II,  IV-IX,  describes  a  helpful  experiment  for 
developing  thoughtfulncss  in  school  pupils  concerning  their  futures,  and 


VOCATIONAL  GUIDANCE  257 

gives,   177-298,   some  of   the   results.     His  Chapter  XIV   discusses  the 
work  of  vocational  counselling. 

Cooper's  "  Why  Go  to  College?"  and  Wilson's  "  Working  One's  Way 
through  College  "  will  be  very  helpful  to  older  boys  and  girls  who  are 
measuring  the  value  and  possibility  of  thorough  preparation  for  life  through 
a  higher  education. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
THE   CHURCH  AND   HER  CHILDREN 

So  far  as  children  are  concerned  we  have  three  types  of 
churches.  There  is  the  church  that  neglects  its  children. 
The  building,  the  services,  the  plans,  the  leadership  — • 
everything  except  a  Sunday  school,  conducted  almost  in- 
dependently —  are  entirely  for  adults.  Children  are 
ignored  until  they  cease  to  be  children  and  then  are 
expected  to  enter  what  other  adults  participate  in.  The 
method  of  revival  is  often  depended  upon  to  bring  about 
this  change.  To  the  revivalist  sinners  and  children  are 
alike  —  they  are  outsiders.  Second,  there  is  the  church 
that  is  ineffective  with  children.  In  this  church  there  is 
someone,  there  may  be  several,  who  recognize  the  need 
of  "  doing  something  for  the  children."  So  there  may  be 
a  troop  of  Boy  Scouts,  there  may  even  be  an  assistant 
minister  who  is  especially  charged  with  children's  inter- 
ests. The  church,  however,  is  not  vitally  concerned  in 
any  of  these.  The  Sunday  school  is  virtually  a  separate 
institution.  Somebody  of  his  own  initiative  started  the 
Scouts,  but  the  church  has  not  adopted  the  organization 
and  does  not  know  very  much  about  it.  The  assistant 
minister  has  the  blessing  of  the  church,  but  not  its  alle- 
giance. The  children  are  still  outside.  In  these  two  types 
of  churches  there  are  parents  who  are  earnestly  concerned 
for  the  religious  training  of  children,  but  there  is  not  a 
considerable  body  of  persons  who  have  the  courage  to 
scrutinize  the  church  as  if  it  had  just  been  thought  of  and 
ask  themselves  what  is  the  will  concerning  it  of  Jesus  who 
said:  "  Of  such  [that  is,  of  children]  is  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  To  build  a  meeting-house  primarily  for  those 
of  whom  is  the  kingdom,  to  conduct  services,  to  make 
plans  "and  to  engage  a  minister  really  for  their  sakes  has 

258 


THE   CHURCH  AND   HER   CHILDREN  259 

not  been  within  the  vision  of  many  Christian  churches. 
The  third  type  consists  of  the  churches  that  have  caught 
such  a  vision. 

The  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  to  suggest 

A  Church  Plan  for  Children 
There  would  not  be  room  in  the  chapter,  even  if  there 
were  the  desire  in  the  mind  of  the  author,  to  propose  a 
revolution  of  church  organization.  What  he  intends  to 
do  is  simply  to  state  five  rights  which  every  child  should 
have  in  every  church.  How  the  attainment  of  these 
rights  will  affect  the  present  constitution  of  the  church 
is  beyond  the  present  inquiry.  These  rights  are,  however, 
so  simple  and  really  so  within  reach  of  attainment  in  any 
earnest  church  that  it  may  be  premised  that  they  will  not 
be  destructive  of  what  is  now  worth  while. 

Worship 
Whether  church-going  is  always  to  occupy  the  central 
place  in  organized  religion  that  it  occupies  today  may  be 
a  question.  The  most  religious  nation  of  antiquity  had 
for  a  long  period  only  one  temple  of  worship,  to  which  all 
the  people  resorted  at  infrequent  intervals.  The  practical 
matter  is  that  for  many  centuries  the  vitality  of  the  church 
has  seemed  to  be  closely  linked  with  its  ceremonies  of  public 
worship.  Its  safe  future  depends,  in  part,  upon  the 
strength  of  this  service.  The  church  that  expects  to 
win  and  hold  the  coming  generation  must  build  the  life 
of  its  young  people  into  this  service,  and  not  depend 
upon  converting  them  to  it  after  contrary  habits  have 
been  formed.  We  are  also  coming  to  believe  that  the 
services  of  devotion  in  the  Sunday  school,  "  junior  con- 
gregations "  and  attempts  to  combine  church  and  Sunday 
school  in  one  service  are  unsatisfying,  because  fortifying 
the  habit  of  attendance  at  one  service  makes  more  diffi- 
cult rather  than  more  easy  the  transition  to  another  and 
because  a  composite  service  pleases  nobody.  The  best 
goal  seems  to  be  to  make  a  church  service  that  shall  mean 
something  to  a  whole  family. 


260        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

In  these  days  of  "  enriching  "  the  service  of  non- 
liturgical  churches  and  liberalizing  the  service  in  liturgical 
ones  we  ought  to  take  advantage  of  the  willingness  to  make 
changes,  and  study  the  psychology  of  the  way  a  child 
worships  so  that  these  changes  shall  suit  childhood.  We 
may  in  this  study  ignore  very  young  children,  on  the  ground 
that  while  they  are  still  living,  moving  and  having  their 
being  mostly  in  the  home  life,  we  do  them  no  injustice  if  we 
do  not  provide  regular  occasions  of  public  worship  for  them. 
It  will  be  enough  for  them  for  the  present  to  share  in  the 
church  festivals  and  to  look  forward  to  taking  their  place 
in  the  church  home.  As  for  the  older  ones,  we  can  see 
already  that  the  simple,  the  dramatic  and  trie  active  will 
appeal  to  them.  Each  sect,  according  to  its  own  genius, 
must  consider  changes  in  these  directions.  Simplicity 
may  come  in  shortening  the  service  and  omitting  vain  and 
meaningless  repetitions.  The  story-sermon  or  the  chil- 
dren's sermon  has  already  found  its  way  into  many  of  our 
churches,  and  its  popularity  with  adults  has  revealed  to 
some  preachers  the  superiority  of  the  parabolic  over  the 
hortatory  method  of  teaching.  Endeavors  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  the  service  in  non-liturgical  churches  cautiously 
patterned  after  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  have  been 
in  unconscious  recognition  of  the  remarkable  dramatic 
movement  of  that  order  of  service.  It  is  because  children 
enjoy  and  appreciate  that  movement  that  we  look  for  a 
cheering  Christian  unity  in  this  direction.  The  return  to 
the  church  in  some  modern  form,  especially  for  occasions 
of  festival,  of  the  miracle  play  is,  if  we  mistake  not, 
something  to  be  definitely  worked  for.  Activity  is,  of 
course,  essential  to  children  who  require  frequent  changes 
of  position.  The  best  activity  in  worship  is  that  of  song. 
The  quartet  choir  is  a  fetich  which  we  worship  in  church 
and  do  not  endure  in  the  secular  concert.  The  possi- 
bilities of  children's  choruses  have  not  been  reached  in 
this  country.  A  few  musicians  know  not  only  what  can 
be  done  with  trained  cathedral  choirs  but  that  pretty 
nearly  all  children  can  be  taught  to  sing. 


THE   CHURCH  AND   HER   CHILDREN         261 

Religious  Education 

The  writer  of  a  recent  book  upon  Sunday-school  work 
has  entitled  it  "  The  Church  School."  In  the  truest  sense 
the  whole  church  is  a  school,  and  there  is  nothing  done 
with  children  in  the  service  of  worship  or  in  the  boys' 
club  or  at  the  summer  camp  that  is  not  for  the  direct 
purpose  of  education.  But  the  so-called  Sunday  school 
is  the  proper  center  for  the  church's  most  important  educa- 
tional activities,  and  so  it  deserves  to  be  developed  into  a 
comprehensive  church  school.  It  may  or  may  not  meet  all 
together  on  Sunday.  To  call  it  "  the  Bible  school  "  is  to 
accept  without  consideration  the  presupposition  that  the 
church's  only  textbook  will  be  the  Bible. 

The  church  has  been  moving,  amid  various  struggles, 
toward  the  development  of  a  real  and  worthy  school  of 
religion.  We  need  only  summarize  the  results  of  this 
movement.  It  has  come  to  embrace  all  classes  of  chil- 
dren in  its  effort.  It  has  gradually  narrowed  the  subject 
of  instruction,  which  in  the  days  before  free  schools  in- 
cluded secular  subjects,  to  religious  education.  It  has 
studied  the  child  to  find  out  what  religious  teaching  he 
needs  at  each  period  and  has  also  studied  the  Bible  afresh 
to  find  out  what  the  Bible  has  for  each  age.  It  has  im- 
mensely increased  the  worth  of  the  textbooks  and  other 
educational  devices  used  by  teachers  and  pupils.  It  has 
begun  with  some  seriousness  the  work  of  training  its 
teachers,  who  are  mostly  volunteers,  so  that  they  may  be 
real  educators.  It  contemplates  some  extension  of  its 
courses  into  the  weekdays  and  a  closer  relationship  be- 
tween its  school  and  its  so-called  "  young  people's  so- 
cieties." The  best  thing  that  the  church  has  learned  is 
to  appreciate  that  the  Sunday  school  is  the  church's  own 
school.  Doing  this  means  not  only  assuming  its  budget, 
appointing  its  officers  and  hearing  its  reports,  but  putting 
the  whole  strength  and  responsibility  of  the  church  into 
its  most  important  task. 

A  great  educator  has  said  that  the  greatest  of  educa- 
tional tasks  is  "to  find  the  teacher,  not  to  found  the 
school."     The  livest  matter  of  interest  in  church  school 


262       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

circles  is  to  get  into  the  consciousness  of  the  church  the 
necessity  of  providing  a  trained  faculty  for  the  school. 
The  very  improvements  that  have  been  made  in  courses 
and  equipment  may  tend  to  make  the  church  well  satis- 
fied, but  that  satisfaction  cannot  be  lasting,  since  there  is 
nothing  vital  in  any  school  but  its  teachers.  Some  of  the 
old  New  England  churches  used  to  set  apart  a  second 
minister,  on  a  parity  with  the  "  pastor,"  as  "  teacher." 
The  church  must  learn  to  regard  all  its  teachers  as  of  its 
most  sacred  office,  and  ask  many  of  its  members,  not 
as  a  courteous  and  temporary  act  of  good  nature,  but  as 
a  lifetime  consecration,  to  assume  this  task  of  teaching, 
after  thorough  training,  in  the  church  school.  This  is  a 
right  of  the  child,  and  is  essential  to  the  future  of  the 
church. 

Social  Life 
We  have  been  impressed  at  every  step  of  our  study  with 
the  fact  that  the  child  is  a  social  individual.  We  have 
learned  that  the  child  has  not  only  no  "  original  nature," 
but  that  he  literally  shares  much  of  his  life  with  others. 
His  religious  development  comes  under  the  same  law,  and 
the  universal  way  by  which  children  come  forward  in 
their  groups  into  church  membership  should  be  enough 
to  cause  us  to  realize  that  we  can  make  no  religious  im- 
pressions that  do  not  involve  the  so'cial  nature.  Neither 
can  the  child  or  the  youth  serve  and  so  express  his  reli- 
gious life  except  in  social  relations.  A  merely  "  Sunday 
church,"  therefore,  can  be  reaching  only  a  small  part 
of  the  capacities  of  the  child,  and  its  very  success  on 
Sunday  may  have  and  often  does  have  the  effect  of  per- 
suading the  child  that  religion  is  a  Sunday  matter.  In 
neighborhood  churches  at  least  it  would  not  seem  to  be  too 
much  to  crave  that  the  earliest  social  life  of  the  child 
should  develop  under  church  sanctions.  It  seems  prob- 
able that  such  early  connections  will  do  much  to  keep 
sane  and  sweet  the  entrance  of  youth  later  into  a  larger 
society.  In  all  churches  there  ought  to  be  regular  oppor- 
tunities for  mutual  acquaintance  and  service  among  its 
young  people.     All  such  facilities  ought  to  be  very  closely 


THE   CHURCH  AND   HER  CHILDREN         2G3 

under  the  control  of  the  church  and  be  in  effect  an  exten- 
sion of  the  life  of  its  school.  A  gymnasium  and  a  camp 
are  excellent  institutions,  but  they  are  not  worth  much  for 
the  purposes  we  have  in  mind  if  they  are  carried  on  by 
persons  hired  for  the  purpose  who  have  little  other  con- 
cern in  the  church  itself.  The  Boy  Scouts,  the  Knights  of 
King  Arthur,  the  Campfire  Girls,  are  ingenious  and 
educative  appliances,  but  they  should  be  conducted  by 
the  church  school  teachers  and  be  used  chiefly  as  means  of 
bringing  classes  or  groups  of  classes  into  club  life.  The 
Christian  Endeavor  and  such  like  movements  are,  in  the 
writer's  judgment,  eventually  to  secure  a  much-needed 
adult  direction,  definite  aim  and  universal  grasp  by  losing 
their  life  so  that  they  may  add  richness  to  the  life  of  the 
church  school. 

Committal 

There  is,  as  we  have,  seen,  a  break  between  the  life  of 
children  and  of  adults  in  the  church.  To  some  degree  it 
may  be  inevitable.  There  is  a  break  between  being  a 
child  and  being  an  adult.  What  the  church  wants  to  do 
with  all  its  children  is  what  the  parent  tries  to  do  with  the 
individual  child,  to  carry  the  children  from  childhood  over 
into  adulthood  in  the  church  without  losing  anything 
that  is  permanently  precious  in  childhood  and  without 
unnecessary  strain  and  unrest  on  the  way.  There  are 
different  ways  of  doing  this.  One  church  assumes  that 
its  children  are  infant  members  and  after  appropriate 
instruction  "  confirms  "  them.  Another  by  a  "  Decision 
Day  "  in  its  church  school  takes  an  annual  census  of  those 
who  will  move  definitely  forward  into  an  accepted  rela- 
tion with  the  church.  A  third  works  more  quietly  still, 
but  arranges  that  each  class  of  young  adolescents  shall 
each  year,  as  a  group  and  as  individuals,  have  the  oppor- 
tunity to  make  some  committal.  Different  communions 
may  work  in  different  ways,  but  each  one  may,  as  a  part 
of  its  church  program,  work  for  and  expect  that  its  whole 
school  shall,  as  it  matures,  enter  the  graduate  school  of 
church  membership. 


264       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

This,  too,  is  a  right  of  the  child,  to  come  naturally  into  a 
place  in  his  Father's  House. 

Everywhere,  but  in  the  church  of  God  especially,  the 
child  has  a  right  to 

A  Friend 

The  church  is  an  institution,  but  its  work  if  it  be  divine 
must  be  personal.  We  have  already  seen  to  what  an 
extraordinary  degree  a  child  responds  to  personal  influ- 
ence. What  we  know  about  moral  and  religious  education 
is  chiefly  this,  that  formal  instruction  does  some  good  in 
helping  a  child  to  put  right  names  to  things,  but  that  he  is 
made  good  chiefly  by  seeing  how  goodness  looks  when  it 
is  lived.  When  Charles  Kingsley  was  asked  the  secret 
of  his  life,  he  replied:  "  I  had  a  friend."  Swift  reports 
that  of  255  boys  in  the  Waukesha  Reform  School,  54  had 
never  seen  anyone  whom  they  particularly  admired,  while 
42  others  who  said  they  had,  could  not  name  anyone.  To 
28  others  Washington  had  been  the  nearest  available 
hero.  There  are  many  obvious  lessons  in  such  facts. 
One  of  them  only  will  be  named  here  in  connection  with 
the  church  rights  of  a  child,  a  church  plan  for  children. 
It  is  this:  Oftentimes  when  we  imagine  that  we  cannot 
persuade  anybody  to  "  take  a  Sunday-school  class  "  or  do 
some  other  particular  chore  in  the  church,  we  can  have 
the  finest  young  men  and  women  in  the  community  if 
we  will  tell  them  what  we  know  men  and  women  like 
themselves  mean  to  boys  and  girls  who  are  climbing  be- 
hind them  up  the  hill  of  life.  Such  a  challenge  calls 
forth  a  fine  chivalry.  If  the  church  believes  in  its  work 
like  this,  it  can  have  the  right  men  and  women  to  do  the 
work. 

Reading  References 

Of  course,  Horace  Bushnell  forecasted  the  views  of  this  chapter  many 
years  ago  in  his  "  Christian  Nurture."  This  thought  of  embracing  chil- 
dren in  the  arms  of  the  mother  church  from  the  beginning  and  nurturing 
them  with  quiet,  devoted  wisdom  has  been  worked  out  admirably  and  with 
a  sane  psychology  in  McKinley's  "  Educational  Evangelism."  The 
author's  "  Church  Work  with  Boys  "  shows  how  it  may  be  done  in  the  case 
of  boys.     Coe  has  given  us  "  The  Christian  View  of  Childhood  "  in  the 


THE  CHURCH  AND  HER  CHILDREN  265 

fourth  chapter  of  his  "  Education  in  Religion  and  Morals."  The  book 
cited  in  the  chapter  as  the  best  recent  one  upon  the  Sunday  school  is 
Athearn's  "  The  Church  School."  Not  only  is  it  a  complete  manual,  but 
its  references  to  books  and  educational  material  are  exhaustive.  Harts- 
horne's  "  Worship  in  the  Sunday  School  "  is  the  only  thorough  book  upon 
its  theme. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 
THE   GOAL:     SERVICE   FOR   THE   KINGDOM 

The  Christian  world  is  not  yet  sure  what  it  means  to 
be  a  Christian.  If  it  were,  Christian  men  would  never 
find  it  necessary  to  go  out  and  shoot  each  other.  If  it 
were,  it  would  not  find  it  necessary  so  to  waste  its  strength 
and  resources  among  a  hundred  sects  that  it  has  no  time 
to  attack  the  social  problem  and  has  no  money  with 
which  to  give  its  children  adequate  religious  education. 
But  so  far  as  it  has  come  to  any  vision  it  says  that  to  be  a 
Christian  means,  in  a  word,  Self- Devotion.  And  then 
needing,  just  as  the  child  needs,  to  see  its  duty  in  terms  of 
a  life,  it  goes  back  to  its  Master  to  learn  what  Self-Devo- 
tion  is  like.  It  was  not  selflessness.  Whatever  the 
metaphysician  Paul  meant  when  he  spoke  of  the  Christ 
as  "  emptying  himself,"  Jesus  did  not  empty  himself  of 
his  humanity.  What  we  know  of  his  silent  years  from  the 
great  result  in  the  few  years  of  his  public  ministry  per- 
suades us  that  they  were  spent  in  magnificent  preparation. 
Not  selflessness  but  a  superb  self-respect  was  behind  the 
life  that  gave  itself  so  royally  when  it  was  ready.  It  gave 
not  because  it  was  poor,  but  because  it  was  exceedingly 
rich  and  because  it  had  so  much  to  share.  Such  have  been 
the  other  lives  that  have  reminded  us  most  of  Jesus: 
from  Paul  through  Saint  Francis  and  Livingstone  to 
Grenfell.     They  express  an  attitude  and  a  bestowing. 

This  attitude  and  this  bestowing  obtain  their  grandeur 
from  the  greatness  of  the  ends  to  which  they  were  conse- 
crated. These,  as  the  Two  Laws  of  the  Kingdom  state 
them,  are  Love  to  God  and  Love  to  Man.  Stated  thus 
baldly,  they  are  mere  abstractions,  but  stated  in  terms  of 
life,  of  the  life  that  Jesus  lived,  they  are  glowing  realities. 
To  say  what  Love  to  God  means  is  to  say  all  that  the  di- 
vine Father  meant  to  the  soul  of  Jesus;  to  say  what  Love 

266 


THE   GOAL:    SERVICE   FOR  THE   KINGDOM  267 

to  man  means  is  to  say  all  that  men  and  women  and  chil- 
dren called  forth  from  Jesus  of  compassion,  loyalty  and 
chivalrous  attachment. 

The  Young  Christian  as  a  Knight 
When  our  Teutonic  ancestors  were  wild  warriors,  with 
cruel  hatreds  and  ungoverned  passions,  the  Christian 
teachers  who  converted  them  were  puzzled  how  to  turn 
these  furious  forces  into  orderly  channels.  Already  these 
shaggy  fighters  had  their  distinctions  of  rank  and  honor. 
The  monks  who  influenced  them  decided  to  allow  these 
distinctions  to  stand,  while  they  endeavored  to  use  the 
best  ideals  they  represented  to  nobler  ends.  So  the 
Franks  continued  to  have  their  chevaliers  and  the  Ger- 
mans their  Ritter,  both  denominating  the  men  who  rode 
on  horseback.  But  they  established  new  rules  for  their 
conduct  and  they  taught  them  to  be  proud  of  a  new  name, 
that  of  Knechten,  or  servants.  They  made  them  wish  to 
consecrate  to  a  heavenly  Master  their  old  prowess  and 
strength.  From  this  word,  in  time,  came  the  modern 
word  "  knights."  So  the  men  who  had  no  taste  to  be 
monks  or  scholars  were  captivated  by  this  new  kind  of 
soldiering.  Without  being  other  than  themselves,  with- 
out destroying  anything  in  them  that  was  really  worthy, 
they  strove  to  live  up  to  their  new  nobility  with  the  old 
enthusiasm  and  fellowship. 

This  has  been  said  to  help  us  state  to  young  people  and 
to  ourselves  for  their  sakes  what  it  means  for  them  to  be 
Christians.  It  is  to  be  knights  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ. 
This,  of  course,  is  not  in  the  sense  of  what  historic  knight- 
hood actually  became,  but  of  knighthood  as  it  was  held 
as  an  ideal.  This  ideal  does  not  enfold  all  of  personal 
Christianity  as  it  may  be  attained  by  a  mature  Christian. 
It  does  not  exhaust  the  meaning  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  But 
it  does  express  probably  better  than  any  other  single  con- 
ception the  attitude  which  a  young  Christian  living  ac- 
cording to  his  development  may  best  hold.  It  is  at  least 
helpful  to  us  who  are  older  to  use  such  a  clear-cut  concep- 
tion so  as  to  differentiate  what  is  meant  when  we  ask  a, 


268       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

young  person  to  follow  Jesus,  from  what  it  means  to  a 
little  child.  It  guards  one  or  two  important  and  sacred 
qualities  of  youth  of  which  he  is  jealous  as  an  integral 
part  of  his  manhood.  When  we  say  manhood  we  include 
young  womanhood  also,  since  the  chivalric  ideal  in  femi- 
nine form  is  congenial  to  girls.  The  qualities  which  I 
particularly  have  in  mind  are  Self-Respect  and  Chivalry. 

Self-Respect 
Young  persons  do  not  take  satisfaction  in  the  thought 
that  they  are  "  worms  of  the  dust."  They  are  unwilling 
to  sing,  "  Oh,  to  be  nothing,  nothing."  They  may  sing, 
but  they  cannot  mean,  that  other  hymn  which  begins, 
"  Perfect  submission."  They  are  not  followers  of  either 
Saint  Jerome  or  Saint  Anthony,  but  rather  of  Saint 
Christopher,  who  sought  to  find  the  strongest  as  master, 
because  he  had  so  much  strength  to  give.  The  youth  has 
not  yet  fathomed  or  tested  his  strength,  but  he  believes 
it  is  immense.  It  is  not  necessary  to  disturb  this  high 
confidence.  Life  will  disturb  it  soon  enough.  Let  him 
continue  to  roar  forth  that  favorite  hymn  in  every  pre- 
paratory school  in  this  country: 

"  The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 
A  kingly  crown  to  gain; 
His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar, 
Who  follows  in  His  train?  " 

This  attitude,  confident,  heroic,  loyal,  a  young  man  or 
woman  ought  to  carry  into  his  religion. 

But  it  has  to  be  qualified  by  another.     That  other  is 

Chivalry 
Here,  too  often,  we  stop.  We  are  living  in  an  opulent 
time.  We  rear  our  youth  like  princes.  But  we  forget 
that  the  first  essential  to  the  knightly  ideal  was  the  Quest. 
Listen  to  an  account  of  the  ancient  custom.  "  He  was 
first  solemnly  reminded  of  the  duties  of  a  knight,  and  then 
left  in  the  solitude  of  the  sanctuary  to  spend  the  night  in 
meditation  and  in  prayer.  Around  him  in  the  shades  of 
the  aisles  were  the  resting-places  of  the  dead.     On  the 


THE  GOAL:    SERVICE  FOR  THE  KINGDOM  269 

painted  windows,  faintly  shown  by  the  pale  light  of  the 
moon,  were  the  pictured  records  of  the  conflicts  of  the 
saints  and  martyrs  of  other  days.  In  front,  upon  the  altar, 
where  lie  the  weapons  he  is  to  bear,  dimly  seen  by  the  rays 
of  the  constant  lamp,  was  the  cross,  the  symbol  of  his 
faith.  What  is  the  meaning  of  it?  He  is  not  simply  a 
restless  young  wanderer,  eager  for  fame.  Still  less  is  he  a 
bold,  mercenary  fighter.  The  knight  errant  is  conse- 
crated to  the  service  of  the  weak,  the  needy  and  the 
wronged." 

Such  an  ideal  is  not  uncongenial  to  youth.  Someone 
has  said  that  "  the  keynote  to  boyhood  is  struggle," 
referring  doubtless  to  the  stormy  endeavors  of  lads  toward 
self-knowledge  and  adjustment  with  their  fellows.  Even 
the  Boy  Scouts,  a  peaceful  organization,  has  found  uni- 
forms, decorations  and  drills  essential.  And  to  girls,  no 
less,  though  in  somewhat  different  ways,  the  idea  of  con- 
flict is  interwoven  with  much  of  their  early  experience. 

Now  comes  the  Master  and  tells  these  young  people, 
whose  whole  preparation  has  been  of  soldierly  quality, 
that  its  destiny  is  this :  warfare,  yes,  but  warfare  in  behalf 
of  others.  Jesus  recognizes  the  storm  and  stress  of  adoles- 
cence; he  even  anticipates  its  continuity,  but  he  redeems  it. 

To  one  who  looks  abroad  in  the  times  of  which  we  are 
a  part  there  is  something  more  than  the  reverberations  of 
almost  universal  war  to  suggest  that  the  present  issue  is 
most  suitably  stated  in  terms  of  Conflict.  Underneath  the 
pretexts  that  set  the  world  ablaze  we  see  the  outreaching 
of  whole  races  for  opportunity  and  the  struggle  of  democ- 
racy to  come  into  control.  The  so-called  feminist  move- 
ment is  more  than  the  effort  to  grasp  the  suffrage;  it  is 
an  expression  of  an  entire  sex  coming  to  self-realization. 
Political  struggles  take  names  from  contests  about  the 
tariff  and  the  regulation  of  trusts,  but  they  come  back  to 
the  personal  desire  of  men  and  women  to  have  for  them- 
selves and  for  their  children  life  more  abundantly.  The 
various  recent  movements  in  the  churches,  brotherhoods, 
revivals  organized  upon  business  methods,  other  co- 
operative movements,  are  endeavors  to  make  vital  and 


270       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

effective  the  crusading  spirit  that  is  native  to  the  heart  of 
every  Christian. 

We  may  do  this,  even  more  vitally  and  more  effectively, 
with  young  people.  We  can  transform  the  love  of  strenu- 
ous play,  of  fighting,  of  fellowship,  into  the  contests  of  the 
Kingdom.  Their  strength  is  unspoiled  by  self-seeking; 
they  have  not  misused  the  spirit  of  contest  in  the  selfish- 
ness of  business  or  society;  they  are  not  disillusioned. 
All  that  is  best  of  their  enthusiasm,  vigor  and  romance 
may  be  enlisted  in  the  Holy  War. 

How  may  we  best  inculcate  in  the  young  the  ultimate 
of  the  chivalrous  ideal,  the  will  to  serve? 

Training  to  Serve 
This,  like  all  our  training,  must  follow  along  the  lines 
of  the  child's  own  development.  We  have  said  that  the 
child  at  the  beginning  is  self-regarding  and  demanding. 
We  have  indicated  the  desirability  of  his  getting  a  sense 
of  property  rights  and  of  learning  to  deal  prudently  with 
money  and  other  possessions.  But  we  do  not  need  to  stop 
there.  The  child,  who  is  capable  of  love,  is  also  capable 
of  enjoying  the  luxury  of  giving  and  serving.  He  may  be 
encouraged  to  this  by  the  approval  of  those  who  train  him. 
He  may  be  taught  to  use  his  love  of  surprises  by  planning 
unexpected  pleasures  for  others.  He  should  be  taught  to 
sympathize.  His  range  of  sympathy  naturally  is  limited 
by  his  experience.  He  can  feel  for  the  sorrows  of  other 
children  who  have  never  had  not  only  what  he  most  prizes 
but  even  his  common  blessings.  He  can  sympathize  to 
some  degree  with  those  who  are  shut  off  from  sunshine 
and  outdoor  play  by  sickness.  If  he  cannot  give  money 
or  goods  to  these,  he  can  help  prepare  the  gifts  and  go 
with  those  who  present  them.  Gradually  and  steadily, 
as  his  intelligence  and  experience  develop,  he  should  be 
brought  close  to  the  various  needs  of  the  world.  The 
benevolent  boards  of  the  churches  are  of  great  importance, 
but  they  do  not  always  represent  instructional  material 
of  the  widest  or  closest  range,  and  until  recently  their 
facts  have  not  been  attractively  or  simply  stated  for  chil- 


THE  GOAL:    SERVICE  FOR  THE  KINGDOM  271 

dren.  These  boards  are  themselves  to  blame  in  not  build- 
ing up  a  new  clientele  of  supporters  if  they  do  not  educate 
them. 

The  child's  allowance  should  never  be  forcibly  levied 
upon  for  benevolence.  If  he  offers  to  give,  let  him  do  so 
in  a  free,  self-respecting  fashion.  If  he  is  interested  and 
is  informed  of  the  technique  of  bestowing  (the  tithe  sys- 
tem, for  example;  how  the  money  actually  gets  to  India, 
etc.)  he  will  usually  become  a  systematic  donor  when  he 
is  quite  young. 

There  is  much  joy  in  joint  benevolence.  Considerable 
ingenuity  has  been  shown  in  young  people's  societies 
(with  girls  more  than  with  boys,  however)  in  developing 
co-operative  schemes  of  handicraft,  dramatics  and  social 
entertainments  for  the  sake  of  good  causes.  It  cannot 
be  said  that  any  of  these  go  very  far  along  the  way  of 
sacrifice,  but  if  the  cause  is  clearly  known  and  really  loved 
and  the  personal  element  is  kept  alive  in  the  bestowal, 
these  merry,  co-operative  tasks  have  considerable  value 
in  training  young  people  in  working  together. 

The  Right  Relation  Toward  Money 
But  there  are  things  in  the  chivalric  life  more  important 
than  young  people's  dramatics.  One  of  these  is  the  right 
relation  toward  money.  We  turn  back  to  the  attitude  of 
Jesus  and  of  Francis  of  Assisi  with  refreshment  —  and 
bewilderment.  We  admire,  and  we  despair.  While  one 
has  to  struggle  with  the  high  cost  of  simply  keeping  alive, 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  follow  the  teachings  of  Jesus  who 
lived  in  a  time  when  it  was  probably  not  as  hard  for  a 
man  to  clothe  himself  as  it  is  today.  It  is  the  glory  of  a 
good  civilization  that  it  creates  wants,  and  ours  has 
created  many  which  only  money  can  supply.  It  is  easier 
for  young  persons  to  see  this  kind  of  wants  and  desire 
to  satisfy  them  than  the  —  still  better  —  ones  that  money 
cannot  supply.  The  very  air  is  full  of  the  lust  of  money. 
It  gets  into  the  home  conversation,  as  we  express  our 
financial  anxieties,  tell  of  our  money-making  schemes, 
make  clear  by  the  general  trend  of  our  talk  that  while  we 


272       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

want  the  children  to  be  honest  and  unselfish,  we  shall  be 
very  uneasy  indeed  unless  they  lay  up  a  fortune. 

It  would  be  difficult  in  a  short  chapter  to  say  how  a  home 
can  counteract  the  money-loving  tendencies  of  the  time. 
So  far  as  the  young  people  are  concerned,  we  must  somehow 
persuade  them  that  money  is  not  the  young  knight's 
shield,  but  his  sword;  that  he  must  master  it,  that  he 
may  wield  it  for  good;  that  this,  like  his  talents,  may  be 
made  to  help  the  wronged  and  serve  the  Kingdom. 

The  Quest  for  Social  Justice 
Some  Christians  believe  that  the  road  of  the  Master 
will  in  the  near  future  point  away  from  the  ways  of  the 
church.  They  point  to  the  alienation  of  wage-earners 
from  her  doors.  They  claim  that  the  moral  fervor  that 
once  glowed  on  the  church's  altars  now  shines  in  the  halls 
of  organized  labor.  They  say  that  the  church  is  allied 
with  a  social  system  which  must  be  overturned  before  the 
Kingdom  of  God  can  come  on  the  earth. 

The  purpose  of  this  textbook  is  not  to  say  what  the 
home  or  the  church  shall  teach  young  people  about  social 
questions.  But  we  are  sure  that  they  should  encourage 
them  to  face  them  boldly.  We  think  that  every  home 
and  the  leaders  of  every  church  should  at  least  know  what 
the  proletariat  is  saying  and  feeling.  We  believe  that 
there  is  a  capitalistic  press  and  a  labor  press,  and  that 
most  of  us  read  too  exclusively  of  either  sort.  We  want 
the  men  and  women  who  are  going  to  lead  the  church  of 
God  in  the  future  to  find  some  way  of  standing  beside  the 
weary  and  the  heavy-laden  and  continuing  the  task  of  the 
Carpenter  of  Nazareth  in  lifting  their  yokes  as  well  as  in 
giving  rest  to  their  souls. 

The  Consecration  of  Self 
We  have  said  that  not  self -crucifixion  but  self-devotion 
is  the  motive  that  appeals  to  youth.  Possibly  we  have 
implied  that  such  consecration  is  made  in  some  hour  of 
crisis  only.  Those  hours  of  vision  and  definite  resolve 
are  indeed  holy,  but  perhaps  not  more  so  than  those  of 


THE  GOAL:    SERVICE   FOR  THE   KINGDOM  273 

every  day.  The  mother  who  can  keep  step  with  the 
prayers  of  her  child  craves  that  each  day  may  mean  the 
giving  of  the  child,  according  to  his  knowledge  and  love, 
to  the  life  of  the  world  as  represented  in  his  daily  duty. 
Here,  after  all,  is  where  the  emphasis  must  be  made.  The 
reason  why  we  listen  sometimes  with  uneasiness  to  the 
petition  or  resolve  expressed  in  the  young  people's  meet- 
ing or  watch  without  pleasure  the  shallow  endeavors  of 
the  service  committee  is  not  because  they  are  necessarily 
insincere,  for  probably  they  are  not,  but  because  we  are 
so  afraid  they  are  being  made  the  substitute  for  what  is 
vital,  the  consecration  of  the  daily  life.  And  this  is  where 
the  perpetual  companionship  of  parent  and  child  is  most 
precious,  because  it  gives  the  parent  the  chance  to  try  to 
show  how  religion  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  home  duties  and 
home  obligations.  To  get  the  young  knight  to  transfer 
his  enthusiasm  from  riding  gaily  in  the  lists  to  shaking 
down  the  furnace  is  a  very  difficult  but  important  task. 

Reading  References 

A  little  book  by  Robert  J.  Drummond,  "  The  Christian  Knight  "  (Bag- 
sters,  London),  expresses  more  fully  than  we  have  seen  elsewhere  the  con- 
viction that  Christianity  for  young  people  should  be  thought  of  in  terms 
of  chivalry.  "  Graded  Social  Service  for  the  Sunday  School,"  by  Hutchins, 
is  broader  than  its  title  indicates,  being  an  earnest  endeavor  to  give  graded 
suggestions,  appropriate  to  each  period,  for  co-operative  sendee  by  young 
people.  Such  well-known  books  as  Mathews'  "  Social  Teachings  of  Jesus," 
and  Rauschenbusch's  "  Christianity  and  the  Social  Crisis  "  are  moderate 
in  their  statements  of  the  duty  of  the  church  in  view  of  the  social  situation. 
Bouck  White's  "  The  Call  of  the  Carpenter  "  is  a  radical  document  on 
this  subject. 

Josiah  Strong's  textbooks,  issued  in  monthly  parts  under  the  title  "  The 
Gospel  of  the  Kingdom,"  have  been  found  very  useful  in  adult  classes 
that  wish  to  discuss  the  social  problems  of  today  from  the  Christian 
standpoint. 

Behind  the  confusion  of  social  theories  stands  the  vision  of  the  type  of 
manhood  which  we  crave  to  help  create  as  the  fullest  expression  of  the 
Christian  ideal.  Recent  writers  have  approached  this  subject  from  dif- 
ferent standpoints.  In  his  stimulating  "  Crowds  "  the  poet-sociologist, 
Gerald  Stanley  Lee,  has  endeavored  to  state  this  ideal  in  social  terms; 
in  his  earlier  "  The  Lost  Art  of  Reading  "  he  has  written  it  more  clearly 
from  the  literary  point  of  view.  The  mystics'  aspiration  was  never  more 
passionately  worded  than  in  Richard  Jefferies'  memories  of  his  youth, 
"  The  Story  of  My  Heart."  But  probably  the  most  useful  studies  of  the 
man  whom  the  Christ  would  have  us  be  are  some  recent  books  about 
Jesus  himself.  Bruce  Barton's  "  The  Young  Man's  Jesus,"  by  no  means 
a  deep  book,  yet  suggests  by  its  title  the  honest  desire  to  answer  this  ques- 


274        CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

tion  from  the  standpoint  of  youth.  Crooker's  "  The  Supremacy  of  Jesus," 
King's  "  Rational  Living  "  and  Fosdick's  "  The  Manhood  of  the  Master  " 
are  conscious  endeavors  to  interpret  the  ideals  of  Jesus  to  young  lives. 
Two  textbooks  for  this  purpose  may  be  recommended:  Jenks'  "  Life 
Problems  of  High  School  Boys  "  and  Elliott-Cutler's  "  Student  Standards 
of  Action,"  the  latter  being  intended  for  college  students.  The  continua- 
tion of  this  present  course  of  study,  by  the  study  of  any  of  the  last  three 
mentioned,  with  the  purpose  of  teaching  the  same  to  classes  of  boys  or 
girls,  would  be  an  admirably  practical  way  to  carry  these  lessons  on  child 
training  into  real  religious  education. 


LABORATORY  EXPERIMENTS 

The  studies  which  follow  are  "  laboratory  topics."  It 
is  believed  that  those  who  have  read  thus  far  are  now 
ready  for  some  first-hand  experiments  and  are  equipped 
to  make  somewhat  more  careful  observations  of  their 
own  and  to  interpret  them.  Those,  however,  who  have 
not  pursued  the  course  before  would  by  no  means  fail 
of  profit  by  joining  a  class  at  this  point. 

The  methods  of  work  available  to  an  average  group 
are  these: 

Reminiscence. 

Interviews. 

Reading. 

Observation. 

Experiment. 

Survey. 
More  than  one  of  these  are  suggested  in  each  of  the  studies 
that  follow.  By  "  Reminiscence  "  is  meant  a  careful 
search  of  one's  own  memories;  by  "  Interviews,"  informal 
but  purposeful  chats  with  children  as  well  as  more  formal 
questioning  of  adults;  by  "  Reading  "  is  implied  the  search 
of  diaries,  autobiographies,  tabulated  and  untabulated 
records,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  published  observations  of 
other  students.  "  Experiment  "  implies  nothing  like 
vivisection,  but  simply  modest  endeavors  to  try  out  a 
theory  or  to  arrange  a  situation  in  which  a  child  shall 
express  himself  naturally.  A  "  Survey  "  is  a  careful 
study  of  -a  local  social  situation  for  a  definite  purpose. 
The  useful  rather  than  the  scholastic  aim  is  understood 
to  be  at  the  bottom  of  every  method. 

The  following  general  hints  are  introductory  to  the 
study  as  a  whole. 

Hints  on  Reminiscence 
In  trying  to  recall  one's  own  viewpoint  as  a  child,  the 
following  cautions  are  needful : 

275 


276       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

1.  Dissociate  anything  you  are  trying  to  prove  from 
what  you  are  trying  to  remember.  In  fact,  never  try  to 
prove  anything  —  except  the  truth.  Give  everything 
your  memory  offers,  whether  it  is  in  accord  with  the  gen- 
eralizations of  others  or  not,  so  long  as  it  has  direct  bear- 
ing on  the  case. 

2.  Separate  carefully  what  you  yourself  recall  from 
what  you  have  been  told  by  others  and  especially  be  sure 
that  recent  suggestion  from  your  reading  has  not  thrown 
itself  back  into  the  guise  of  memory. 

Hints  on  Interviews 
In  all  conversations,  whether  informal  or  by  appoint- 
ment, with  adults  or  children,  conceal  carefully  your 
theory  or  thesis.  Ask  only  and  clearly,  What  do  you 
remember  ?  What  do  you  think  ?  How  do  you  feel  about 
this?  With  reference  to  a  child  especially,  any  expres- 
sion of  opinion,  to  be  valuable,  must  be  checked  up  by  a 
considerable  knowledge  of  the  child,  his  temperament, 
his  freedom,  sincerity  or  reticence  of  speech,  and  often  is 
better  secured  under  several  differing  circumstances  and 
moods.  The  child  is  so  responsive  that  he  is  likely  to 
say  what  you  want  him  to  say.  His  words  are  not  ac- 
cepted in  a  court  of  law  and  they  are  not  to  be  counted 
as  reliable  elsewhere.  But  when  you  can  catch  a  spon- 
taneous statement  of  opinion  or  feeling,  you  have  some- 
thing, and  when  you  have  responses  from  enough  children 
you  get  quite  a  respectable  body  of  evidence. 

Hint  on  Reading 
You  will  value  in  quite  different  categories  the  litera- 
ture of  insight,  the  popular  book  based  on  second-hand 
evidence,  and  the  monograph  of  original  research. 

Hints  on  Observation  and  Experiment 

The  following  valuable  suggestion  is  from  Coe.     What 

you  observe  is  not  the  subjective  states  of  children,  but 

what   they  do  in  any  particular  situation.     There  is  a 

situation  and  here  is  the  reaction ;  usually  there  is  a  social 


LABORATORY  EXPERIMENTS  277 

situation  and  here  is  a  social  response.  Observe  care- 
fully the  original  situation  and  just  how  the  children 
respond  to  it.  Then  change  the  situation  in  a  single 
definable  way  and  note  the  change  in  the  children's 
reactions.  Do  not  explain  in  advance  why  you  make  the 
change,  and  do  not  tell  the  children  how  you  expect  them 
to  act.  Just  change  the  situation  and  note  the  changed 
response.  Always  note  age,  sex,  and  any  other  known 
determinant  of  the  child's  conduct.  Interpret  your  notes 
in  terms  of  instincts  or  other  unlearned  tendencies,  in 
habits,  ideals,  laws  of  growth  or  laws  of  learning. 

Hints  for  a  Survey 
The  following  directions  that  are  given  for  investigating 
certain  subjects  of  study  by  the  survey  method  are  chosen 
from  the  best  surveys  that  have  actually  been  made  that 
are  available.  Unless  the  student  is  sure  he  has  a  wiser 
method  he  would  better  carefully  follow  those  indicated. 
Their  value  is  that  they  clearly  had  in  mind  what  was 
being  sought  after  and  chose  what  seemed  to  be  the  best 
questions  by  which  to  find  it  out. 

The  Remaining  Topics 

Some  of  the  topics  cover  more  thoroughly  ground  that 
has  already  been  touched  in  some  of  the  first  thirty-six 
chapters.  But  they  involve  direct  contact  with  practical 
details  and  applications,  and  closer  relations  between  the 
individual  problem  and  the  social  problem  as  it  appears 
in  the  school,  the  church  and  the  community.  The  pur- 
pose is  not  only  to  master  more  thoroughly  what  has 
been  read,  but  to  use  it  more  effectively.  To  this  end 
the  observations,  interviews  with  adults  and  experiments 
nearly  all  have  some  practical  and  immediate  focus. 

The  division  of  the  rest  of  the  study  is  by  topics  rather 
than  by  chapters.  It  is  not  anticipated  that  all  of  these 
will  be  used  by  any  given  class.  Classes  that  are  able  to 
give  not  more  than  three  months  more  to  the  study  will, 
in  twelve  sessions,  use  not  more  than  a  dozen  of  the 
topics.     One  will  usually  be  enough  for  a  session. 


278        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

It  is  presupposed  that  the  leader  and  the  class  will 
decide  in  conference,  before  going  further,  which  of  the 
topics  shall  be  taken  up,  and  that,  since  most  of  them 
require  and  will  reward  a  preparation  lasting  more  than 
one  week,  ass:gnments  will  be  made  at  this  time  to  those 
who  will  report  upon  nearly  every  one  of  the  topics. 

Where  more  than  one  method  of  investigation  is  sug- 
gested under  a  single  topic  it  is  desirable,  though  it  is  not 
necessary,  that  all  of  them  should  be  followed  up. 


TOPIC   I 

INSTANCES  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING  AND  OF 
BEING   MISUNDERSTOOD 

Throughout  the  earlier  chapters  we  were  continually 
noticing  how  children  were  wronged  because  they  were 
misunderstood.  We  saw  that  their  primitive  instincts 
were  always  getting  them  into  trouble,  that  we  were 
never  prepared  to  appreciate  their  imaginativeness,  that 
in  all  our  relations  with  them  of  discipline,  fellowship, 
even  of  religious  nurture,  we  were  continually  trampling 
upon  some  impulse,  fancy,  conviction,  which  we  did  not 
even  know  existed.  We  saw  that  when  adolescence  came 
with  all  its  storm  and  stress  the  child  who  had  been  in- 
jured all  his  life  by  others  was  now  in  danger  of  self -injury 
because  he  did  not  understand  himself.  The  purpose  of 
the  points  for  investigation  named  below  is  to  show  up 
some  of  the  more  common  matters  of  misunderstanding 
and  thus  to  put  ourselves  on  guard  against  them. 

It  hardly  need  be  said  that,  in  this  and  all  the  succeed- 
ing topics  in  which  it  is  implied  that  the  pupils  are  to  be 
free  of  textbook  or  teacher,  successful  class  sessions 
depend  upon  faithful  and  hearty  preparation  of  the  work 
suggested.  Some  of  the  tasks  suggested  are  for  individ- 
uals and  some  are  co-operative.  Though  assigned  by 
the  leader,  it  is  presumed  that  each  student  volunteers  as 
to  which  assignment  he  prefers.  Several  may  accept  the 
same  task,  and  thus  bring  in  results  that  are  of  increased 
value,  because  arrived  at  independently. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 
1.  Note  as  carefully  as  you  can  the  instances  in  your 
childhood  and  youth  when  you  were  misunderstood. 
Place  the  dates  as  closely  as  possible.  Select  only  in- 
stances in  which  you  judge  that  there  was  no  fault  in 
your  behavior,  simple  cases  of  misapprehending  words 
or  acts  or  motives.  Having  done  this,  note  in  each  case, 
for  report,  the  cause  of  the  misunderstanding. 

279 


280        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

Was  it  because  you  did  not  know  how  to  express 
yourself  ? 

Was  it  because  the  adult  apparently  did  not  take  pains 
to  understand? 

Was  it  due  to  some  secret  fancy  that  you  did  not  wish  or 
feel  able  to  explain? 

Did  you  intend  to  cast  suspicion  on  yourself;  and  if 
so,  why?  etc. 

2.  Confess  a  number  of  instances  in  which  you  have 
failed  to  understand  a  given  child.  Give  the  reasons  why 
you  think  you  failed.  Give  the  explanations  that  now 
occur  to  you.  State  any  unsolved  cases.  Suggest  how 
you  or  others  could  enter  into  more  perfect  understanding. 

3.  List  the  next  twenty  questions  that  are  spontaneously 
asked  you  by  a  given  child.  Outline  your  answers.  State 
in  each  case  what  you  think  the  child  was  seeking.  Use  a 
notebook  for  this,  and  indicate  age  and  sex  of  child. 

4.  As  a  help  to  your  own  understanding,  ask  several 
children  of  various  ages  what  they  are  most  afraid  of, 
and  why. 

5.  Since  the  child  is  often  not  self-explanatory,  take  a 
specific  case  of  temper,  and  give  as  many  extenuating 
circumstances  as  you  can  think  of,  endeavoring  to  take 
the  child's  viewpoint. 

6.  Deal  with  a  case  of  sulkiness  in  the  same  way. 

7.  Take  the  habit  of  crying  spells  and  seek  similar  ex- 
planations. 

8.  Gather  ,a  few  instances  of  "  prodigals  ";  that  is,  of 
boys  or  girls  who  left  home  because  they  were  unhappy 
there.  If  you  have  the  confidence  of  one  such  person, 
relate  his  story  and  his  reasons,  anonymously,  in  full,  or 
give  several  such  stories  in  part  with  the  probable  reasons 
from  the  prodigals'  standpoints. 

9.  In  your  own  home  you  have  become  convinced  that 
a  certain  misunderstanding  is  due  to  a  circumstance  that 
you  know  and  can  remedy.  Change  the  situation  in  that 
respect  and  report  the  result.  If  you  get  no  result,  alter 
the  experiment  in  the  light  of  your  further  wisdom. 


THE   HIDDEN   LONGINGS   OF   CHILDHOOD    281 

TOPIC   II 
THE    HIDDEN    LONGINGS   OF   CHILDHOOD 

The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  come  closer  to  an 
understanding  of  individual  children  by  bringing  to  light 
typical  instances  of  desires  that  have  been  strongly  held 
by  children  but  which  for  various  reasons  have  been 
kept  concealed.  The  further  aim  is  to  learn  how  we  may 
help  children  either  by  bringing  such  desires  to  fruition, 
or  at  least  by  sympathizing  with  them. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 
1.  Try  to  state  clearly  (best  on  paper)  a  few  of  the 
hidden  longings  of  your  childhood  and  youth.     Beneath 
each  one  put  notes  as  follows:  » 

(a)  At  what  age  did  this  desire  begin,  how  long  did  it 

last,  and  when  did  it  cease? 

(b)  Did  it  or  did  it  not  come  to  fulfilment  ?     In  what 

way? 

(c)  Why  did  you  conceal  it :  because  it  was  impossi- 

ble of  fulfilment,  because  you  thought  adults 
would  not  understand  or  sympathize,  because 
you  thought  it  might  be  wrong,  or  for  what 
reason  or  reasons? 

(d)  What  was  the  influence  of  this  desire  upon  you, 

then  and  later? 

(e)  Have  you  suspected  or  known  such  a  desire  in 

the   mind   of   your   own   child?     Of   another 
child  ?     How  have  you  dealt  with  it  ? 
Give  a  sketch  of  a  few  significant  hidden  desires  in 
the  lives  of  children  of  which  we  have  record  in  literature. 
(The  following  books,  if  available,  will  be  useful.     Biog- 
raphies, which  speak  of  their  subject's  childhood  in  detail 
may    also    be    searched.     Una    Hunt's    "  Una    Mary  " 
Chapter    VIII    of    G.    Stanley    Hall's    "  Adolescence  " 
Chapters  I,  IV  and  XI  of  Annie  Steger  Winston's  "  Mem- 
oirs   of    a   Child  "   and    Marie   Bashkirtseff's  autobiog- 
raphy.) 


282       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

3.  Give  instances  of  this  sort  that  have  been  told  you 
by  other  adults.  Make  special  inquiries  also  for  this 
report. 


TOPIC   III 
THE    INTERESTS    OF   AN    INDIVIDUAL    CHILD 

Study  one  child  (more  than  one  if  you  can)  and  find  out 
from  his  conversation,  his  school  record  as  interpreted 
by  his  teacher,  his  activities  at  home  and  in  any  other 
possible  way  what  are  his  principal  interests.  Tabulate 
these,  placing  in  the  first  column  the  subjects  he  studies 
in  school,  and  in  the  second  his  chief  activities  out  of 
school.  Underline  singly  and  doubly  to  indicate  the 
intensity  of  the  appeal  of  any.  Connect  by  a  line  items 
in  one  column  that  are  related  to  items  in  another  column. 
Connect  by  dotted  lines  items  in  one  column  that  inter- 
fere with  or  are  exclusive  of  items  in  the  other  column. 
Having  done  this,  study  the  results,  and  give  a  report, 
verbally  or  in  writing,  on  the  following  points : 

How  many  items  in  each  column  seem  to  represent  real, 
natural  interests? 

How  do  the  school  activities  help  or  hinder  the  outside 
activities  ? 

How  do  the  outside  interests  help  or  hinder  the  school 
interests  ? 

What  do  the  answers  to  the  last  two  questions  suggest 
as  to  the  desirability  of  modifying  either  school  or  outside 
activities?  In  making  this  study  the  student  should  read 
again  Chapter  XIII. 


TOPIC   IV 
SCHOOL    AND    THE    INTERESTS    OF    LIFE 

The  aim  is  to  discover,  in  various  ways,  how  school 
may  be  more  closely  related  to  the  permanent  interests 
of  life. 


SCHOOL  AND   THE   INTERESTS   OF   LIFE     283 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  What  specific  subjects  of  study  in  school  (such  as 
literature,  drawing,  nature  study,  etc.)  awoke  or  stimu- 
lated in  your  life  interests  that  have  become  vital?  In 
your  reply,  specify  how  they  did  so,  whether  by  the 
method  of  presentation,  some  feature  of  the  textbook  or 
laboratory,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  teacher,  the  evident 
relation  with  an  interest  already  alert,  one  or  all. 

2.  Reviewing  the  principal  subjects  of  instruction  in 
the  common  schools,  which  in  your  case  tended  to  stimu- 
late, which  to  satiate  and  which  to  destroy  vital  inter- 
ests? The  test,  of  course,  would  be  a  comparison  of  the 
vitality  of  such  interests,  so  far  as  it  can  be  made,  before 
and  after  the  study  of  these  subjects. 

3.  Which  subjects  of  study  in  school  do  your  children 
talk  over  with  you  at  home  ?  Concerning  which  are  they 
silent?     What  inferences  do  these  facts  suggest? 

4.  Ask  a  child  of  a  given  age  (more  than  one  if  possible) 
what  subjects  in  school  interest  him,  and  why.  Then 
suggest  the  possible  relations  of  each  of  these  studies  to 
his  life,  present  or  future,  and  note  his  further  com- 
ments. 

5.  What,  if  any,  has  been  the  favorable  influence  upon 
you  later  of  studies  which  in  schooldays  were  not  your 
favorites?  In  your  reply,  make  some  such  classification 
as  this, —  subjects  that  were  the  tools  of  knowledge  (such 
as  spelling);  subjects  that  were  believed  to  be  "  discipli- 
nary"; subjects  that  were  not  well  introduced  or  ade- 
quately explained  to  you;  subjects  for  which  you  were 
not  ripe.  What,  in  detail,  is  your  impression  as  to  favor- 
able possibilities  that  might  have  been  brought  out,  by 
rearrangement,  by  better  presentation,  by  omission? 

6.  Secure  a  copy  of  the  curriculum  of  our  local  high 
school  and  study  it  in  relation  to  the  probable  futures 
of  its  pupils.  What  changes,  if  any,  would  be  desirable 
to  bring  the  school  closer  to  the  life  interests  of  our  young 
people  ? 


284       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

TOPIC  V 
AROUND  THE  CLOCK  WITH  A  CHILD  AT  PLAY 

A  study  like  this  has  been  undertaken  before,  at  two 
different  ages  of  childhood,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  the 
results  of  these  two  investigations  may  be  presented  to- 
day. But  they  will  be  of  greater  value  if  they  are  not 
offered  until  after  individuals  have  made  their  own  inde- 
pendent observations.  Students  of  childhood  who  are 
experts  will  welcome  gladly  careful  testimonies  regarding 
the  life  of  the  child  in  his  free  play. 

It  is  suggested  that  each  member  of  the  class  take  this 
one  subject  for  report.  There  is  room  for  different  ap- 
proaches, as  to  age,  sex  and  circumstance.  Such  an 
investigation  will  be  more  valuable  the  longer  it  is  con- 
tinued and  the  more  times  specific  observations  are  made. 
Following  are  suggestions  for  various  ways  of  undertaking 
the  work. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  In  the  Nursery.  The  mother  of  a  little  child  can 
easily,  with  a  small  notebook  at  her  hand,  jot  down  each 
playful  activity  of  the  child  from  the  time  he  wakes  in 
the  morning  until  he  takes  his  nap.  The  fact  that  one 
observer  made  over  seventy  separate  notes  in  the  space 
of  two  hours  indicates  how  varied  are  such  play  activities 
and  how  copious  faithful  notes  would  be.  In  such  ob- 
servations the  mother,  of  course,  will  not  confine  herself 
to  play  with  toys  or  articles  of  any  sort.  Some  playful 
activities  will  perhaps  involve  no  objects  at  all.  There 
should  be  no  discrimination  in  her  search  for  facts,  though 
brief  interpretations  would  not  be  amiss  at  the  time. 
The  essential  thing  is  to  catalogue  all  that  takes  place,  and 
afterward  to  find  out  what  the  facts  reveal. 

After  the  mother  has  taken  all  the  notes  she  cares  to, 
such  as  the  complete  record  of  a  play-day  of  twelve 
hours,  or  records  taken  at  different  periods  of  the  day,  or 
records  of  play  under  different  circumstances  —  such  as 
indoors  and  outdoors,  with  companions  and  alone  —  she 


AROUND  THE   CLOCK  WITH   CHILD   AT   PLAY  285 

is  ready  for  the  study  of  her  notes.  She  may  settle  upon 
any  topic  of  special  search  that  she  chooses  —  such  as  one 
of  these: 

What  proportion  of  the  play,  if  any,  was  dramatic, 
imaginative,  in  character? 

What  general  differences  were  there,  in  activity,  initi- 
ative, success,  enjoyment  between  the  solitary  play  and 
the  co-operative  play ;  or  between  the  play  with  an  adult 
and  with  another  child? 

What  differences  were  there  in  the  play  at  different 
times  of  day ;  or  between  the  play  indoors  and  outdoors  ? 

What  specific  reactions  did  the  child  make  to  separate 
playthings  (toys  of  various  sorts,  household  articles  not 
meant  for  playthings,  etc.)  ? 

2.  The  Play  of  the  Young  School  Child.  The  mother 
can  observe  such  play,  so  far  as  it  takes  place  in  her  own 
house  or  back  yard.  She  should  do  so  unobserved,  e.g., 
by  leaving  a  door  open.  It  may  be  both  surprising  and 
instructive  to  do  so.  Some  of  the  objects  named  above 
may  be  kept  in  mind,  particularly  as  to  the  influence  of 
different  playmates  upon  action,  ideas  and  ideals. 

3.  The  Play  of  the  Older  School  Child.  Here  the 
student  usually  depends  upon  the  child's  own  report. 
To  encourage  such  a  child,  who  usually  talks  about  his 
play  freely,  to  go  into  detail  as  to  just  what  he  does  and 
why  he  does  it  and  who  suggests  and  leads,  etc.,  will  be 
very  instructive.  It  would  be  both  possible  and  desirable 
that  the  observer  should  watch  the  same  child  in  the 
yard,  on  the  playground,  in  the  woods  and  other  haunts 
of  his  group,  etc.,  both  unnoticed  and  as  a  part  of  the 
company . 

In  all  such  studies  that  are  to  be  reported,  the  age  and 
sex  of  the  child,  and  a  fair  report  of  all  influential  cir- 
cumstances, should  be  given.  The  purpose  in  each 
instance  should  be  not  to  prove  a  thesis,  but  to  discover 
the  truth. 

4.  A  Study  of  an  Adult's  Play.  Make  a  self-examina- 
tion. Do  vou  really  play?  When?  How  regularly? 
How  do  your  play-interests  differ  from  those  when  you 


286        CHILD-  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

were  a  child?  What  does  play  do  for  you  different  from 
what  it  used  to  do  ?  Do  you  play  enough  ?  Do  you  play 
to  the  best  advantage?  What,  considering  your  needs, 
would  be  for  you  a  model  play  program? 


TOPIC   VI 
A   CHILD'S   READING 

What  is  desired  in  this  study  is  knowledge  of  what 
children  actually  read,  particularly  with  the  thought  of 
studying  what  they  like  and  also  of  finding  out  how  their 
likings  may  be  wisely  directed  and  bettered  by  adults. 
Any  of  the  following  methods  of  investigation  would  be 
fruitful. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  An  extant  list  of  books  that  were  read  by  some  boy 
or  girl.  (Children  sometimes  keep  such  separate  lists; 
others  record  them  in  diaries.  In  presenting  such  a  list 
try  to  trace  the  ages  represented  at  each  point,  and  give 
the  sex.) 

2.  A  list  procured  by  tracing  back  the  record  upon  a 
given  child's  library  card. 

3.  A  composite  list  of  children's  reading,  procured  in 
co-operation  with  a  children's  librarian,  by  counting  on 
the  book-slips  in  the  children's  department  the  number 
of  times  books  have  been  taken  out  during  a  given  period. 
(The  search  might  be  for  the  twenty  most  popular  books, 
but  the  titles  least  frequently  sought  for  would  be  equally 
significant.  It  would  be  desirable,  either  by  confining 
the  search  to  a  certain  alcove  restricted  to  children  of  a 
certain  range  of  age  or  some  other  plan  which  the  librarian 
may  suggest,  to  discover  what  ages  of  children  are  repre- 
sented in  the  result.) 

4.  A  list,  prepared  by  co-operation  with  a  given  child, 
whose  sex  and  age  are  reported,  of  all  he  reads  during  a 
short  interval,  including  papers  and  magazines  as  well  as 
books. 


PRACTICAL  STORY-TELLING  287 

5.  A  catalog  of  a  child's  library,  with  special  notes  to 
show  two  points,  the  books  chosen  by  the  child  and  those 
chosen  by  others  for  him,  and  which  books  are  the  child's 
favorites. 

6.  A  catalog  of  a  home  bookcase,  indicating  by  number, 
at  least,  the  books  which  the  children  would  enjoy  read- 
ing and  the  departments  of  literature  which  such  books 
represent. 

7.  A  study  of  nickel  novels.  A  report,  produced  by 
friendly  co-operation  with  a  dealer,  of  the  series  that  are 
favorites  with  young  people,  indicating  the  proportion  of 
boys  and  of  girls  and  the  range  of  age.  The  investigator 
should  purchase  samples  of  all  the  series  in  stock,  and 
examine  them  for  his  report  with  reference  to  their  style, 
their  usefulness,  their  purity  of  language,  their  mechanical 
appearance,  their  moral  tone,  and  the  reasons  adduced 
for  their  popularity.  Suggestions  as  to  possibilities  of 
substitution  would  be  helpful. 

8.  A  statement  of  the  resources  and  needs  of  the  chil- 
dren's department  of  the  local  public  library,  prepared 
by  co-operation  with  the  librarian. 

9.  A  similar  statement  concerning  the  local  church 
library.  See  also  Topic  XXVI  for  more  detailed  sugges- 
tions on  this  point. 


TOPIC  VII 
PRACTICAL  STORY-TELLING 

So  important  is  story-telling  because  of  its  emotional, 
its  intellectual  and  its  moral  appeal,  in  the  home,  the 
school  and  the  church,  that  this  course  would  not  be  com- 
plete without  one  or  more  exercises  by  the  class  in  the 
actual  telling  of  stories.  These  exercises  will  not  be 
effective  unless  the  story-telling  is  accompanied  by  criti- 
cism, kindly  and  friendly  and  intended  to  improve  the 
technique  of  all  who  are  present.     Following  are  a  few 


288        CHILD   STUDY   AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

suggestions  as  to  subject,  method  of  telling  and  plan  for 
criticism.  (We  first  studied  story-telling  in  Chapter 
XIX.) 

Suggestions  for  Subjects 

1.  Some  student  may  like  to  retell  a  story  that  has 
been  told  by  another.  The  following  are  a  few  that  are 
commonly  accessible.  In  using  them,  the  story-teller 
will,  of  course,  make  them  his  own  so  far  as  possible  both 
in  structure  and  language  and  will  on  no  account  read 
them  to  the  class. 

"  The  Fisherman  and  His  Wife,"  from  Andersen. 

"  The  Story  of  Gareth,"  from  the  "  Idyls  of  the  King.' 

"  The  Pig  Brother." 

"  Pippa  Passes,"  from  Browning. 
From  the  Bible  these  are  suggested : 

David  and  Mephibosheth. 

The  Three  Hebrew  Children,  from  Daniel. 

Jezebel  and  Jehu. 

An  excellent  subject  for  experiment  is  the  story  of  the 
visit  of  the  three  angels  to  Abraham,  recorded  in  Gen.  xviii. 
This  is  the  passage: 

But  Abraham  moved  his  tent  and  came  and  dwelt  in  the  plain 
of  Mamre,  which  is  in  Hebron.  And  Jehovah  appeared  to 
Abraham  by  the  oaks  of  Mamre,  as  he  was  sitting  at  the  door 
of  the  tent  in  the  heat  of  the  day;  and,  as  he  looked  up,  he  saw 
three  men  standing  there  opposite  him.  And  as  soon  as  he  saw 
them,  he  ran  from  the  door  of  the  tent  to  meet  them  and  bowed 
himself  to  the  ground,  and  said,  My  lords,  if  now  I  have  found 
favor  in  your  sight,  do  not,  I  pray  you,  pass  by  your  servant. 
Let  a  little  water  be  brought,  I  pray  you,  that  you  may  wash 
your  feet,  and  rest  yourselves  under  the  tree;  and  let  me  bring 
a  bit  of  bread,  that  you  may  refresh  yourselves;  afterward  you 
may  go  on  your  way,  since  for  this  reason  you  are  passing  by 
your  servant.     And  they  replied,  Do  even  as  you  have  said. 

So  Abraham  hastened  into  the  tent  to  Sarah,  and  said,  Make 
ready  quickly  three  measures  of  fine  meal,  knead  it,  and  bake 
cakes.  Abraham  also  ran  to  the  herd,  and  took  a  calf,  tender 
and  good,  and  gave  it  to  the  servant,  that  he  might  prepare  it 
quickly.     And  he  took  curds  and  milk,  with  the  calf  which  he 


PRACTICAL   STORY-TELLING  289 

had  dressed,  and  set  before  them,  and  he  was  waiting  on  them 
under  the  tree,  while  they  ate. 

Then  they  said  to  him,  Where  is  thy  wife?  And  he  said, 
There  within  the  tent.  And  he  said,  I  will  certainly  return  to 
thee  about  a  year  from  now,  and  then  Sarah  thy  wife  shall 
have  a  son. 

From  the  standpoint  of  story-telling  method  and  of 
the  child's  interest,  the  angel-stories  are  the  fairy-stories 
of  the  Bible,  and  they  should  be  told  with  the  same  grace 
and  lightness  of  touch.  After  two  or  three  versions  of 
this  narrative  have  been  given,  the  leader  may  like  to 
present  to  this  class  the  following,  which  is  taken  from  an 
early  chapter  in  "  The  Junior  Bible,"  in  the  graded  series 
of  the  Bible  Study  Union  Lessons: 

Long,  long  ago,  across  the  ocean  there  was  a  rich  man  named 
Abraham.  He  did  not  live  in  a  fine  house,  as  rich  people  do  in 
this  country,  and  he  did  not  keep  his  riches  in  a  house.  Instead 
of  that,  he  had  hundreds  and  thousands  of  sheep  and  goats 
and  cattle ;  and  he  and  his  wife  Sarah  lived  in  a  tent  on  a  great 
plain,  where  he  could  look  after  his  many  servants,  as  they 
cared  for  his  flocks  and  herds. 

But  although  Abraham  was  so  rich,  he  was  not  altogether 
happy.  For  he  and  his  wife  Sarah  had  no  son  or  daughter.  One 
day.  God  said  to  Abraham,  "  Go  forth  from  thy  country,  to  a 
land  that  I  will  show  thee.  And  I  will  surely  bless  thee,  and 
make  thy  name  great,  so  that  thou  shalt  be  a  blessing."  So 
Abraham  obeyed  God's  command  and  he  and  Sarah,  gathering 
up  all  their  belongings,  set  out  for  the  far-distant  land.  And  he 
had  a  nephew  named  Lot  who  went  with  him.  Lot  also  had 
many  flocks  and  herds.  It  was  a  long  journey.  Part  of  the 
time  they  had  to  travel  across  a  desert,  where  there  was  no 
water,  nothing  but  dreary  plains  of  sand.  They  had  to  be  on 
the  lookout  all  the  time  for  lions  and  other  wild  beasts,  as  well 
as  robbers.  But  at  last  they  came  to  the  new  land,  which  was 
called  Canaan.  Here  Abraham  and  Lot  found  pastures  for 
their  flocks,  and  lived  in  their  tents  as  they  had  done  in  their 
former  home.  And  their  flocks  multiplied,  and  they  grew 
richer  and  richer. 

One  hot  day,  while  he  was  living  here,  Abraham  was  sitting 
in  front  of  his  tent  door;  and  it  happened  that  three  strangers 
came  down  to  the  road  in  front  of  his  tent.     And  Abraham 


290       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

called  out  to  them:  "  My  friends,  stop  here  with  me  for  awhile 
and  rest;  let  a  little  water  be  brought,  I  pray  you,  that  you  may 
wash  your  feet,  and  rest  yourselves  under  the  tree.  And  let  me 
bring  you  a  bit  of  bread,  that  you  may  refresh  yourselves; 
afterwards  you  may  go  on  your  way."  And  the  strangers 
accepted  Abraham's  invitation,  and  sat  down  by  the  tent.  And 
Abraham  called  to  Sarah  and  said  to  her:  "  Three  strangers 
have  just  come,  and  I  want  to  give  them  something  to  eat; 
bake  some  cakes  for  them  right  away,  please."  So  Sarah  took 
some  flour,  and  baked  a  pan  of  cakes.  And  Abraham  called  a 
servant  and  said  to  him,  "  Make  haste  and  bring  a  tender  roast 
for  some  guests  who  have  just  come."  So  the  servant  did  as 
Abraham  said.  And  Abraham  brought  a  pan  of  water  so  that 
the  strangers  could  wash  their  feet;  for  they  didn't  wear  shoes 
in  those  days  as  we  do  now,  but  only  sandals.  And  after  a 
time  he  brought  them  the  cakes  and  the  roast,  and  some  nice 
cool  milk,  and  they  had  a  good  dinner. 

Now  Abraham  supposed  that  these  three  strangers  were  just 
ordinary  travellers  going  on  a  journey;  but  really  they  were 
angels  sent  from  God.  And  when  they  rose  to  go,  what  do  you 
suppose  they  said?  They  said,  "  Because  you  have  tried  to 
obey  all  God's  commands,  God  is  going  to  give  you  and  Sarah 
a  little  son."  And  in  about  a  year  a  baby  was  indeed  born  to 
Abraham  and  Sarah,  and  they  called  his  name  Isaac.  And  he 
was  the  ancestor  of  the  great  nation  called  the  Hebrews. 

2.  Some  student  may  like  to  tell  a  story  from  a  picture. 
The  following  are  issued  in  the  various  penny  series: 

The^Age  of  Innocence  (Reynolds). 
The  Doctor  (Fildes). 
The  Child  in  the  Temple  (Hunt). 
The  Gleaners  (Millet). 

3.  Others  may  be  willing  to  compose  a  narrative,  on 
the  old  models  or  suggested  by  their  own  experience. 
Excellent  sources  for  stories  of  a  varied  character  are 
these : 

"  Stories  to  Tell  to  Children  "  (Bryant). 

"  For  the  Story-Teller  "  (Bailey). 

"  Stories  and  Story -Telling  "  (Partridge). 

4.  The  writer  had  a  successful  experience  in  a  class  of 
this  sort  by  dictating  a  skeleton  for  a  story,  giving  his 
class  ten  minutes'  intermission  and  then  asking  each  to 


PRACTICAL  STORY-TELLING  291 

tell  a  story  built  upon  the  required  skeleton.  The  outline 
was  this : 

A  situation  arises  in  which  true  worth  of  some  sort  will 
be  made  clear.  Three  persons,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, will  show  their  worth  in  this  respect,  and  there 
will  be  some  recognition  or  reward  for  the  most  worthy. 

It  was  apparent  that  such  a  story  would  probably  turn 
out  to  be  useful  for  moral  ends.  The  results  were  as- 
tonishingly varied,  but  each  member  of  the  class  met 
the  test  easily  (though  previously  all  expressed  alarm), 
all  told  good  stories,  and  every  story  would  have  been 
immediately  useful  in  moral  education.  One  young 
woman  placed  her  scene  in  a  king's  court,  where  unselfish- 
ness of  conduct  was  attempted  and  recognized;  another 
gave  instances  of  self-denial  in  an  athletic  contest;  a 
young  man  gave  instances  by  which  boys  applying  for  a 
position  endeavored  in  turn  to  prove  their  availability. 

It  being  understood  that  any  story  told  to  the  class  is 
intended  for  children,  the  story-teller  should  make  state- 
ments before  beginning,  as  to 

The  purpose  of  the  story. 

The  age  for  which  it  is  intended. 

The  type  of  the  story,  whether  one  of  sense  appeal,  a 
myth,  a  legend,  a  fable,  a  fairy-story  or  a  hero-tale. 

Each  member  of  the  class  should  try  consciously  to 
follow  as  many  as  possible  of  the  suggestions  given  in 
Chapter  XIX,  particularly  as  to 

A  good  beginning. 

Plenty  of  action  and  sense  appeal. 

A  method  of  intense  visualizing. 

The  moral  interwoven  distinctly  in  the  plot  (not  tagged 
on). 

A  fine  climax. 

Criticism  is  to  be  made  of  the  story,  not  of  the  story- 
teller. It  may  follow  along  the  lines  of  purpose  indicated 
above : 

Has  the  story-teller  gained  his  purpose  ? 

Was  his  story  appropriate  to  the  age  for  which  it  was 
designed  ? 


292       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

Was  the  story  well  constructed? 

Did  it  have  the  five  virtues  of  a  good  story,  just  named  ? 
(A  good  beginning,  plenty  of  action,  etc.) 

5.  Another  excellent  method  of  studying  a  story  is  to 
study  the  child  who  is  listening  to  the  story,  and  for  this 
reason  it  is  well  for  each  story-teller  to  try  her  narrative 
on  some  real  children  and  report  the  result,  or  to  have 
the  class  present  among  children  when  some  member  of 
the  class  is  telling  her  story.  Miss  Angela  M.  Keyes,  in 
her  excellent  book  on  "  The  Story,"  says  that  a  listening 
child  may  be  making  any  one  or  more  of  the  following 
responses  to  a  story.  Which  reaction  did  your  story- 
telling produce? 


(1) 

It  is  listening. 

(2) 

It  is  remaining  silent. 

(3) 

It  is  commenting. 

(4) 
(5) 

It  is  joining  in. 
It  is  retelling. 

(6) 
(7) 

It  is  partially  retelling. 
It  is  telling  other  stories. 

(8) 

It  is  inventing  stories. 

(9) 
(10) 
(ID 

It  is  expressing  story  images  in  other  media. 

It  is  playing  the  story. 

It  is  growing  by  the  power  and  grace  of  the  story 

TOPIC  VIII 
CHILDREN'S   IDEAS   OF   PRAYER 

The  object  is  to  learn  a  little  more  about  the  spiritual 
conceptions  that  children  hold,  and  to  discover  how  to 
help  them  to  clearer  and  more  helpful  views  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  personal  communion  with  God.  To  avoid  self- 
consciousness  or  the  possibility  of  flippancy,  it  is  desir- 
able that  the  children  should  be  questioned  when  they  are 
alone  and  in  a  quiet  mood.  Even  more  significant  would 
be  remarks  dropped  spontaneously  and  carefully  recorded. 


CHILDREN'S   INTEREST   IN   THE  BIBLE      293 

If  questions  are  used,  they  should  be  framed  so  as  not  to 
suggest  a  preconceived  reply  or  to  sustain  the  logic  of  the 
questioner. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  A  report  on  a  given  child's  views  of  prayer.  At 
different  times,  perhaps,  ask  these  questions:  Why  do 
people  pray?  Do  you  ever  pray  except  when  you  "  say 
your  prayers"?  What  do  you  sometimes  say  when  you 
pray  that  way  ?  Do  you  ever  pray  when  you  do  not  ask 
for  something?     Do  you  like  to  pray?     Why? 

The  above  questions  are  only  adapted  to  children  about 
ten  to  twelve  years  old. 

2.  A  sketch  of  the  history  of  your  own  prayer  life :  Your 
first  recollections  of  prayer;  how  you  were  taught  to  pray; 
the  feelings  with  which  you  prayed  at  different  ages  of 
life;  any  reluctance  to  pray,  and  its  cause,  at  any  time; 
any  cessation  of  the  prayer  habit,  and  its  occasion;  any 
loss  of  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer  at  any  time,  and  its 
provocation;  any  revival  of  the  desire  to  pray,  and  its 
occasion ;  a  valuation  of  the  habit  of  prayer  in  your  spirit- 
ual development. 

3.  A  history  of  the  influence  of  family  worship  in  your 
spiritual  experience. 

4.  The  effect  upon  yourself  of  the  prayers  of  others; 
your  mother's  prayers;  "  pulpit  "  prayers;  the  prayer- 
meeting;  the  Christian  Endeavor  society;  the  prayer- 
book;  occasions  of  fast  or  thanksgiving. 


TOPIC   IX 
CHILDREN'S   INTEREST   IN   THE   BIBLE 

This  subject,  which  we  touched  in  Chapter  XXII,  is 
of  great  importance  to  all  those  who  have  to  do  with  re- 
ligious teaching.  We  do  not  know  enough  about  it. 
Yet  we  are  framing  our  Sunday-school  curricula  upon  the 
meagre  information  that  we  have.     It  is  of  vital  interest 


294       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

to  the  home,  in  which  the  Bible  is  taught  first  to  most 
children  and  where  it  should  be  of  perpetual  interest  and 
influence. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  Which  Bible  stories  do  your  children  most  often  ask 
for?  Give  ages  and  sexes  and  indicate  order  of  prefer- 
ence in  each  case.  Where  you  know,  give  the  stated 
reason  for  the  preference. 

2.  What  parts  of  the  Bible  do  your  children  most 
enjoy  hearing  read  to  them?  Use  the  same  methods  of 
report  as  in  3. 

3.  How  did  you  take  possession  of  the  Bible?  What 
parts  do  you  first  remember?  How  did  you  get  access  to 
them?  Through  stories,  hearing  them  read,  through  a 
story-Bible,  through  a  King  James  version?  Did  the 
style  or  the  pictures  in  the  book  affect  your  interest  in 
any  way?  Which  did  you  enjoy  more,  the  literal  version 
or  some  paraphrase  ?  State  successively  what  other  parts 
interested  you,  when  and  why.  Did  you  have  any  par- 
ticular aversions ;  if  so,  on  what  account  ?  What  are  now 
your  favorite  portions  and  why? 

4.  How  has  the  Sunday  school  affected  the  interest  of 
your  children  in  the  Bible? 

Give  age  and  sex  and  grade  in  Sunday  school  and  indi- 
cate in  a  general  way  the  methods  of  instruction,  naming 
the  textbooks  used.  Some  persons  say  an  early  teaching 
of  the  Bible  in  Sunday  school  destroys  interest  in  it  later. 
How  about  it?  What  specifically  have  these  children 
seemed  to  gain  as  the  result  of  Sunday-school  teaching  ? 

5.  What  influences  in  life  have  led  you  to  the  Bible? 
Parents,  Sunday  school,  sermons,  reading  in  public  school, 
influences  of  other  literature,  interest  of  friends,  sorrows, 
curiosity,  etc.  ?  Name  all,  and  indicate  how  they  stimu- 
lated or  guided  or  upheld  such  reading. 

6.  What  influence,  if  any,  has  the  so-called  "  modern 
viewpoint  "  of  the  Bible  had  upon  young  people  old  enough 
to  know  anything  about  it?  Talk  with  a  few  thoughtful 
boys  and  girls  of  high-school  age. 

7.  Get  the  attitude  of  a  number  of  young  people,  prefer- 


PERSONS  WHO   HAVE   INFLUENCED   ME      295 

ably  over  ten,  as  to  the  accounts  of  miracles  in  the  Bible. 
Do  they  believe  in  them,  or  do  they  account  for  them? 
What  effect  does  their  attitude  seem  to  have  upon  their 
religious  life? 

8.  If  you  know  young  people  -who  read  the  Bible  daily, 
or  with  considerable  regularity,  find  out  what  course  of 
reading  they  adopt,  what  are  their  conscious  motives, 
whether  or  not  they  enjoy  it,  what  they  think  they  get 
out  of  it. 

9.  Read  aloud  to  a  child  who  is  not  much  interested  in 
the  Bible  narrative  passages  from  one  of  the  new  transla- 
tions, Moffatt's  or  Weymouth's  or  the  Twentieth  Century 
New  Testament,  and  report  the  reaction. 


TOPIC  X 

PERSONS  WHO   HAVE   INFLUENCED   ME 

"  Me  "  in  the  title  means  anyone  who  can  be  induced 
to  give  testimony.  We  have  already  learned  that  the 
personal  touch  is  the  most  effective  force  in  moral  educa- 
tion. We  desire  today  to  confirm  that  knowledge  by 
individual  testimony,  and  further  to  endeavor  to  learn 
just  what  qualities  in  personality  are  noticeably  influen- 
tial. So  far  as  possible,  we  would  like  to  have  the  testi- 
mony from  people  of  different  ages  and  concerning  those 
in  different  walks  of  life  who  have  been  influential. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  Name  to  yourself  the  persons  who  have  been  notable 
milestones  of  influence  in  your  life.  Taking  them  in 
order,  of  your  own  age,  ask  yourself  these  questions: 

Which,  in  order  of  rank,  were  more  influential  to  me  in 
this  person  ? 

Appearance. 

Dress. 

Benefits  received  from. 

Manners. 


296        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

Affectionate  demeanor. 
Athletic  prowess. 
Intellectual  ability. 
Social  graces. 
Goodness. 

Make  some  sort  of  tabulation  or  summary  as  to  what 
qualities  impressed  you  most  at  each  age. 

2.  Try  to  get  from  several  children  (noting  age  and  sex) 
their  frankest  statements  as  to  whom  they  admire  (not 
"  love,"  "  like  ")  most,  and  get  them  to  say  why. 

3.  Ask  a  number  of  children  (noting  age  and  sex) 
whom  they  would  best  wish  to  be  like.  Tell  them  that 
persons  no  longer  living  may  be  included.  Such  a  study, 
in  nine  chapters,  was  undertaken  in  Earl  Barnes'  "  Studies 
in  Education,"  second  series,  under  the  caption,  "  Type 
Study  of  Ideals,"  with  a  large  number  of  children.  Do 
not  compare  notes  until  you  have  finished  your  own 
questionnaire. 

4.  Find  out  from  as  many  groups  of  children  as  possible 
who  is  their  leader,  and  find  out  why. 

It  may  be  necessary  to  get  several  school  teachers  to 
suggest  names  of  boy  and  girl  leaders,  because  such 
leadership  is  sometimes  more  clearly  recognized  by  adults 
than  by  the  children  themselves.  The  question  may  be 
put  to  a  child  like  this:  "  Why  is  it  that  you  think  so  much 
of  what  Frank  Smith  says  or  does?  "  In  Earl  Barnes' 
"  Studies  in  Education,"  first  series,  p.  295,  is  a  short  paper 
on  "  What  Determines  Leadership  in  Children's  Plays." 

5.  Gather  instances  of  influences  from  books  of  biog- 
raphy, and  analyze  them.  A  morning  spent  in  scanning 
the  early  pages  of  the  books  in  the  biographical  section  of 
the  public  library  will  be  fruitful.  There  is  a  wealth  of 
testimony  in  G.  Stanley  Hall's  "  Adolescence  "  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Adolescence  in  Literature,  Biography  and 
History."  See  also  charming  details  in  the  prologue  of 
Grahame's  "  The  Golden  Age,"  Winston's  "  Memoirs  of  a 
Child,"  II,  and  Una  Hunt's  "  Una  Mary,"  I,  VIII,  X,  XII. 

6.  Read  a  selected  book  to  a  child  or  a  group  of  children, 
and  ask  which  character  they  like  best,  and  why. 


CRISES    IN   A   CHILD'S    LIFE  297 

"  Little  Men  "  was  tried  by  a  writer  in  Earl  Barnes' 
"  Studies  in  Education,"  first  series,  p.  94. 

7.  Ask  as  many  church  members  as  possible  this  ques- 
tion: Through  whose  influence  are  you  in  the  church 
today?  Analyze  the  replies  to  discover  in  how  many 
cases  it  was  that  of:  the  minister,  a  church  officer,  a  par- 
ent, a  Sunday-school  teacher,  someone  else. 

8.  What  are  the  characteristics  of  their  best  teacher,  as 
recognized  by  a  school  of  children?  (This  inquiry  could 
be  undertaken  only  through  the  co-operation  of  the  super- 
intendent of  a  public  or  Sunday  school.  The  result  of 
such  an  inquiry  is  described  by  Kratz  in  his  "  Studies  and 
Observations  in  the  School-Room,"  Chapter  V.) 


TOPIC  XI 
CRISES   IN   A   CHILD'S   LIFE 

This  is  not  meant  to  be  solely  a  study  of  religious  con- 
version or  of  adolescent  phenomena.  Perhaps  these  have 
been  studied  proportionately  too  much.  The  thought 
is  to  gather  and  interpret  instances  which  the  child  of 
various  ages  has  regarded  or  which  the  adult  upon  retro- 
spect now  regards  as  having  been  noteworthy  turning- 
points  in  life.  Separate  researches  are  suggested,  but  it 
is  to  be  hoped  that  someone,  the  leader  cr  another,  may 
attempt  at  this  or  the  next  session  some  correlation  and 
unified  interpretation,  if  such  be  possible. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  What  was  the  first  startling  experience  that  was 
influential  in  your  life?  Was  it  a  shock,  perhaps  of  fear? 
Was  it  a  sorrow?  Was  it  a  misunderstanding?  Or  a 
sickness?  Or  a  revelation?  How  did  it  affect  you  at  the 
time?  What  has  been  its  abiding  influence ?  The  experi- 
ence may  not  have  been  a  favorable  one;  this  is  to  be 
remembered  in  the  report. 

2.  What,  if  any,  was  the  turning-point  in  your  life  ?     A 


298       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

sickness  or  sorrow?     A  religious  conversion?     A  friend? 
An  experience  of  love  ?     A  vocational  purpose  ?  etc. 

3.  What  other  crises  or  strong  experiences  led  up  to  or 
followed  your  religious  conversion? 

This  is  an  important  but  unstudied  theme.  One  person 
has  said  that  while  at  the  time  he  regarded  his  conversion 
as  the  watershed  of  his  life,  he  now  recognizes  that,  as  he 
puts  it,  "  the  times  when  he  has  done  something  to  make 
him  ashamed  of  himself  "  and  then  repented  have  been  of 
much  deeper  moral  significance. 

4.  What  crises  have  you  already  noted  in  your  chil- 
dren's lives?  Be  quite  explicit  here  as  to  their  nature, 
the  changes  you  have  noticed,  and  their  probable  future 
effect.     Note  undesirable  as  well  as  desirable  experiences. 

5.  What  experiences  in  the  life  of  a  religious  person 
who  "  never  remembers  when  he  was  converted  "  are  a 
substitute  for  the  experience  of  conversion?  For  what 
experiences  is  conversion  a  substitute  ?  Testimonies  upon 
this  point  from  such  individuals,  if  there  be  any  in  the 
class,  will  be  precious,  because  this  type  of  mind  has  not 
been  well  understood. 

6.  Give  in  detail  the  experiences  that  came  to  you  in 
connection  with  your  religious  awakening  or  awakenings. 


TOPIC   XII 
HELPING  CHILDREN   IN   HOME   STUDY 

No  problem  is  more  difficult  to  the  average  parent  than 
this  of  trying  to  assist  the  child  in  doing  his  home  work. 
The  difficulty  comes  partly  from  the  fact  that  the  teacher 
may  not  have  expected  or  suggested  that  such  help  was 
to  be  given  and  has  given  neither  the  child  nor  the  mother 
directions  as  to  how  help  may  profitably  be  offered,  but 
it  is  more  likely  in  the  fact  that  the  parent  tries  to  help 
the  child  get  some  definite  lesson  rather  than  to  learn  how 
to  get  it  himself.     In  other  words,  what  the  parent  ought 


HELPING   CHILDREN    IN   HOME   STUDY      299 

to  do  is  not  to  find  the  answer  to  some  problem  but  to 
show  the  child  how  to  study. 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  Right  conditions  for  home  study.  Take  the  follow- 
ing statements  as  to  what  constitute  suitable  conditions 
for  successful  home  study.  Note  today  those  which  are 
lacking  and  the  results.  Work  out  with  a  given  child  the 
changes  that  are  necessary  in  order  to  meet  these  sug- 
gested standards  and  after  a  given  time  report  the  results. 

(a)  Have  the  child  select  afresh  the  time  when  he  be- 
lieves himself  at  his  best  for  work.  If  necessary,  have  him 
experiment  a  bit  about  this,  trying  the  hour  just  after 
school,  the  hour  before  supper,  the  hour  after  supper,  an 
hour  before  school  in  the  morning. 

(b)  Arrange  so  that  the  week-end  does  not  interfere 
with  the  regularity  of  the  plan.  That  is,  if  the  afternoon 
is  the  selected  time  do  not  let  Friday  afternoon  be  an 
exception  on  the  ground  that  there  "  will  be  plenty  of 
time  before  Monday." 

(c)  Choose  a  secluded  place.  If  there  is  a  quiet  corner 
in  the  house,  let  the  child  have  it.  If  there  is  not,  allow 
him  to  go  to  the  public  library  or  ask  permission  to  remain 
in  school.  Let  the  place  be  one  where  the  child  cannot 
look  out  of  the  window  or  hear  noises  from  the  street  or 
be  influenced  by  others  who  are  at  play. 

(d)  Choose  a  room  in  which  there  are  no  distracting 
sights,  such  as  pictures,  books  or  playthings.  Have  the 
child  seat  himself  as  nearly  as  possible  in  a  situation  simi- 
lar to  that  in  school,  with  no  distractions. 

(e)  Have  him  set  his  task  clearly  before  him,  and  then 
set  a  time  limit  for  finishing  it. 

(J)  Have  him  go  about  his  work  in  the  most  direct  way, 
by  having  all  his  books,  papers  and  implements  immedi- 
ately at  hand.  Have  him  go  to  work  calmly,  cheerfully 
and  briskly. 

(g)  Ask  him  to  remember  as  clearly  as  possible  how  the 
teacher  told  him  to  go  to  work  as  well  as  what  she  told 
him  to  do,  and  to  rise  with  a  distinct  conquest  achieved. 


300       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

(h)  Tell  him:  "  When  you  get  through  pumping,  let 
go  the  handle."  Don't  have  him  leave  unfinished  work 
or  do  his  work  in  two  installments  or  worry  about  it  after 
it  is  finished. 

2.  Right  habits  in  home  study.  Let  the  parent  for  a 
number  of  days  accompany  a  child  in  his  home  study  with 
the  single  aim  of  teaching  him  how  to  study.  Use  the 
following  methods,  in  the  order  given,  as  many  of  them 
as  possible  each  day.  (They  are  drawn  largely  from  Lida 
B.  Earhart's  "  Teaching  Children  to  Study,"  pp.  144-175.) 

(a)  Ask  the  child  what  his  problem  is,  what  he  is  trying 
to  find  out. 

(b)  Ask  him  what  he  has,  in  the  textbook  or  elsewhere, 
to  help  him  find  out. 

(c)  Ask  him  what  he  has  already  learned  that  will  help 
him  find  out. 

(d)  Ask  him  if  the  teacher  made  any  suggestion  today 
that  may  help  him  find  out. 

(e)  Have  him  (1)  gather  his  data,  (2)  organize  it  into 
related  groups,  (3)  use  his  judgment,  (4)  apply  himself 
thoroughly  in  the  execution. 

(/)  Let  him  bring  to  you  the  result,  if  he  has  one.  If 
he  has  not,  go  over  the  points  again,  discover  which,  if 
any,  he  neglected,  find  the  point  of  difficulty,  and  as  a 
last  resort  show  him  how  to  use  the  neglected  process. 

Report  to  the  class  in  what  ways  this  analytical  method 
seemed  to  help  the  pupil. 

3.  Actual  ways  of  home  study.  As  a  help  toward 
understanding  the  mental  processes  of  children  who  have 
home  work  to  do,  an  exercise  like  the  following  is  sug- 
gested. The  idea  is  taken  from  Kratz'  "  Studies  and 
Observations  in  the  School-Room."  Kratz  tried  it  with  a 
roomful  of  pupils,  but  a  result  could  be  secured  from  a 
single  child.  He  began  by  telling  the  class  that  just  as 
children  who  run  away  from  school  need  a  truant  officer 
to  go  after  them,  so  the  mind  sometimes  plays  truant  and 
needs  to  be  recalled.  "  Now  I  want  you  to  watch  your- 
selves as  to  how  you  study.  I  want  you  to  detect 
your  own  bad  habits  in   wasting    time,  and  then    set 


HOME  DISCIPLINE  301 

about  correcting  them.     Let  us  take  up  the  study  of 

the .     I'll  give  you  five  minutes  to  study  the  page 

which  describes  and  finally  leads  up  to  a  definition  of 

the  .     I  want  you  to  do  your  best  to  keep  your 

minds  on  the  subject.  Be  alert  to  catch  your  mind  wan- 
dering and  bring  it  back  as  quickly  as  possible.  I  will 
indicate  when  your  five  minutes  are  over  and  then  I  want 
you  to  write  out  in  the  next  five  minutes,  How  I  Tried 
to  Study  the .  Mention  the  distractions  and  indi- 
cate how  much  time  you  think  you  lost."  The  results 
(as  given  in  his  Chapter  XVI)  are  interesting  as  to  the 
methods  of  memorizing  used,  and  the  amount  of  distrac- 
tions admitted.  The  device  itself  was  of  some  value, 
because  several  pupils  said  they  never  learned  so  much  in  a 
given  time  in  their  lives. 


TOPIC  XIII 

HOME    DISCIPLINE    AS    SUGGESTED    IN 
THE  BIBLE 

This  topic  is  selected  for  two  reasons.  Every  great  col- 
lection of  books  that  contains  the  history  and  ideals  of  a 
race  includes  its  ideals  of  the  family  and  of  childhood  and 
intimations  as  to  its  theories  of  child  training.  Such  sug- 
gestions are  profoundly  interesting  both  as  interpretations 
of  the  spirit  of  that  race  and  of  some  trends  in  its  history. 
Secondly,  to  us  who  are  Christians  that  collection  which 
includes  not  only  the  early  annals  of  our  own  religion,  but 
the  story  of  the  race  from  which  it  issued  is  of  the  closest 
interest  as  strengthening  and  possibly  modifying  our  own 
viewpoint. 

We  shall  not  expect  to  find  formal  statements  about 
child  study  and  child  training  in  the  Bible  (though  we 
do  come  near  to  finding  the  latter  in  the  Book  of  Proverbs) , 
but  we  may  search  successfully  for  ideals  that  were  worked 
out  in  practice.     The  student  is  asked  to  select  a  subject 


302       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

for  investigation  through  careful  reading  from  the  follow- 
ing: 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  Some  ideals  as  to  parenthood  and  child  training 
in  the  Book  of  Proverbs.  (Just  a  few  suggestive  refer- 
ences are  given.  The  student  is  to  find  and  discuss 
others.) 

The  sanctity  of  the  home  (v;  vi:  20-35;  xxvii:6-ll; 
iii :  33-35) . 

The  functions  of  fathers  and  of  mothers  (iv;  xxxi:  10- 

31). 

Thoughts  on  child  training  (ii:  1 — iii: 26;  xv:  1,  2;  xxii: 
5,  6),  etc. 

2.  Parts  of  the  Bible  that  were  evidently  intended  for 
the  direct  nurture  of  children.  (Indicate  the  specific 
purposes  for  which  these  and  other  passages  were  pre- 
pared.) 

Psalms  cxxviii. 
Psalms  cxliv:  11-15. 
Proverbs  vi:  6-11. 
Proverbs  vii. 
Luke  ii. 

3.  The  words  of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  about 
the  family,  childhood  and  the  relation  of  the  young  to 
religion.  Try  to  put  these  in  the  form  of  a  number  of 
terse,  logical  maxims. 

4.  Paul's  theories  as  to  child  training.  (The  classical 
passage  is  Eph.  v:  1 — vi:  4,  but  find  others,  and  arrange 
the  gist  of  all  in  somewhat  of  a  system.) 


TOPIC   XIV 
RELIGION   IN   THE   HOME 

It  will  be  interesting  and  important  for  the  home- 
makers  who  are  in  the  class  to  know  what  other  home- 
makers  are  doing  in  the  way  of  introducing  religious  influ- 
ences into  their  home  life.     Such  an  inquiry  must  not  be 


THE  TRACES  OF  THE  GANG  303 

inquisitive  or  censorious  and  can  be  conducted  only  in- 
directly. General  free  conference  in  the  midweek  meeting 
would  be  one  method;  informal  conversations  conducted 
by  the  pastor  on  his  rounds  and  by  members  of  the  class 
as  they  meet  their  friends  would  serve  to  give  a  general 
impression.  A  questionnaire  to  be  filled  out  by  many 
church  members  whose  signatures  were  not  demanded 
wrould  give  explicit  knowledge.  Information  that  would 
be  desirable  would  cover  some  of  these  points : 

1.  How  general  is  the  custom  of  saying  grace  at  table? 

2.  How  general  are  daily  or  weekly  family  prayers? 

3.  How   generally   are   little    children    taught    to    say 
prayers  ? 

4.  How  common  is  Sunday  hymn-singing  in  the  home  ? 

5.  In  how  many  homes  do  parents  and  children  talk 
freely  upon  religious  matters? 

6.  How  common  is  the  habit  of  family  church-going? 

7.  What  proportion  of  the  families  of  church  members 
engage  in  systematic  benevolence? 

8.  What  books  of  distinct  religious  value  are  common  in 
the  homes? 


TOPIC  XV 
THE  TRACES  OF  THE  GANG 

Any  study  of  any  group  activity  of  children  should 
begin  with  the  question,  Is  this  a  gang?  The  word 
"  gang  "  is  not  in  universal  use  among  boys,  and  is  not 
used  at  all  by  girls.  A  party  or  a  picnic  is  not  necessarily 
composed  of  a  gang,  even  if  the  invitations  were  all  given 
by  a  child.  A  Sunday-school  class  may  not  constitute  a 
gang.  In  each  and  all  of  these  there  will,  however, 
probably  be  traces  of  a  gang.  We  can  study  a  group 
which  by  the  avowal  of  its  own  members  is  constant  and 
self-cohering  and  so  in  the  true  sense,  a  gang,  and  we  can 
study  another  group  that  is  accidental,  and  still  learn 
something  about  gangs.  We  have  already  studied  the 
gang  in  Chapter  XXVIII. 


304       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

Work  Under  This  Topic 

1.  Gather  all  the  facts  you  can,  both  from  insiders  and 
outsiders,  about  any  club  or  society  of  boys  or  girls  which 
you  know  to  have  been  formed  and  managed  by  children 
without  adult  aid  and  encouragement. 

(a)  Who  was  or  is  its  leader  ? 

(b)  How  did  it  start? 

(c)  What  was  and  is  its  purpose? 

(d)  How  often  does  it  meet  ? 

(e)  Where  does  it  meet  ? 
(j)  What  does  it  do? 

(g)  What  are  the  ages  of  its  members  ?  How  many  are 
there  ? 

(h)  How  are  they  chosen? 

(i)  What  is  the  form  of  organization?  How  are  meet- 
ings conducted?     How  are  members  secured  and  dropped? 

(;')  What  in  detail  is  the  character  of  its  influence  upon 
its  individual  members? 

2.  What  games  are  the  gangs  playing  in  our  city  at 
this  time  of  year?  In  the  spring?  In  the  fall?  In  the 
winter?  How  do  they  play,  and  what  is  the  influence  of 
their  play  upon  the  individual? 

3.  The  gang  and  juvenile  delinquency.  Ask  the 
juvenile  court  judge  or  a  police  captain  or  officer  if  the 
group  spirit  has  any  direct  relation  to  the  conduct  of 
those  who  get  into  trouble.  If  so,  what  can  be  done  about 
it? 

4.  What  conscious  efforts  are  we  making  in  our  church 
to  turn  the  social  instinct  to  good  account?  In  our 
Sunday  school,  our  social  work,  our  endeavors  to  build 
up  the  membership  of  our  church? 

5.  The  gang  idea  in  our  politics.  Is  it  present?  How 
does  it  work?  How  can  it  be  met?  Can  the  gang  idea 
be  used  for  clean  politics  ? 

6.  The  big  brother  idea  in  our  town.  How  can  it  be 
used  in  our  church,  in  our  schools,  in  the  moral  life  of  the 
community  ? 

7.  What  is  the  boy  problem  socially  as  you  see  it  for 
a  group  of  boys  in  whom  you  are  interested? 


THE  VACATION   PROBLEM  305 

8.  Organize  a  club  of  boys  who  need  your  help,  remem- 
bering and  recognizing  the  gang  impulse  in  your  plans, 
and  report  to  the  class  later  how  this  recognition  has 
affected  the  success  of  your  work. 

Could  some  study  be  made  of  this  topic  by  remi- 
niscence, e.  g.,  did  you,  in  childhood,  belong  to  a  club,  or 
society,  spontaneously  organized  by  you  and  your  mates, 
without  adult  help  or  suggestion?  How  old  were  you? 
How  did  the  organization  start?  Where  did  it  meet? 
What  did  it  do? 


TOPIC  XVI 
THE   VACATION   PROBLEM 

The  vacation  season  is  the  wasted  fallow  field  in  many 
a  child's  year.  It  is  one  of  the  most  trying  problems  of 
home  management.  The  following  inquiries  are  intended 
to  center  constructive  thought  upon  this  matter. 

1.  How  my  child  spent  his  last  summer  vacation. 
(The  parent  who  answers  this  may  accept  the  assignment 
either  because  the  vacation  was  a  fruitful  or  a  fruitless 
one ;  in'either  case  the  experience  is  bound  to  be  instructive 
to  others.) 

2.  The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the  summer 
camp.  (This  should  be  taken  by  one  who  has  had  an 
experience  with  a  camp  conducted  by  the  Y.  M.  C.  A., 
the  church,  the  Boy  Scouts,  or  by  school  men.) 

3.  The  possibilities  of  the  family  camp. 

4.  The  possibilities  of  the  work  camp.  (A  helpful 
suggestion  may  come  from  the  leaflet  "  Vacation  Em- 
ployment "  by  William  A.  McKeever  of  the  University  of 
Kansas,  published  by  the  author.) 

5.  The  pro  and  con  of  the  public  playground  and  recrea- 
tion park. 

6.  The  possibilities  of  finding  worth-while  employment 
for  young  people  in  the  summer-time.  (The  author  has  a 
booklet  entitled  "  Money-making  and  Thrift  for  Boys  and 


306       CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

Girls,"   published   by   the  American   Institute   of   Child 
Life,    Philadelphia.) 

7.  Are  there  any  dangers  to  be  avoided  in  vacation  jobs  ? 


TOPIC  XVII 
A  SURVEY  OF  A  SINGLE   SCHOOL 

In  order  to  make  any  adequate  study  even  of  one  public 
school  it  is  necessary  to  see  it  against  the  background  of 
the  school  administration  of  the  whole  city  and  to  study 
not  only  its  own  equipment,  but  its  relations  to  the 
neighborhood  and  to  community  welfare.  The  following 
' '  Twelve  Marks  of  an  Efficient  School  ' '  were  prepared  by 
Dr.  Elizabeth  Kember  Adams  of  Smith  College  for  such  a 
test  as  ours,  and  are  used  by  her  special  permission.  Two 
or  three  of  the  points  may  be  taken  by  one  student,  but 
the  tenth  item,  if  followed  out  in  full,  may  require  more 
than  one  investigator.  It  is  suggested  that  for  our  special 
purpose  emphasis  be  laid  upon  items  4,  5,  6,  7,  9,  10  and 
12. 

1.  Small,  non-partisan  Board  of  Education  or  School 
Committee  (3-9  members)  appointed  or  elected  at  large. 
Superintendent  of  Schools  with  term  of  not  less  than  three 
years. 

2.  School  funds  raised  primarily  through  local  taxation 
with  only  secondary  dependence  upon  State  funds. 
School  finances  managed  on  business  principles  by  some 
one  accountable  to  Board  of  Education. 

3.  A  clear,  brief  school  report  issued  regularly  and  if 
possible  annually,  preferably  in  pamphlet  form,  and 
designed  for  the  information  of  the  tax-payer  and  the 
public  generally.  Expenses  stated  in  terms  of  some  simple 
unit  of  expenditure,  such  as  pupil  or  sitting,  so  that  school 
may  be  compared  with  school,  year  with  year,  this  school 
system  with  other  school  systems,  with  respect  to  such 
items  as  instruction,  supplies,  heating,  lighting,  repairs, 
permanent  improvement,   etc.     School  records  carefully 


A  SURVEY  OF  A  SINGLE   SCHOOL  307 

kept  so  that  report  may  contain  tables  showing  attendance 
in  relation  to  total  number  of  children  of  school  age, 
relations  of  age  and  grade,  of  promotions  and  "  school 
mortality  "  (number  dropping  out  of  school),  etc. 

4.  Modern  or  modernized  school  buildings  with  ade- 
quate fire  protection  and  floor  space,  and  with  well- 
ventilated,  heated  and  lighted  classrooms,  desks  and  seats 
adjustable,  adjusted,  and  preferably  movable,  sanitary 
drinking  fountains,  and  sanitary  plumbing. 

5.  Medical  inspection  and  supervision  of  all  pupils,  not 
only  for  exclusion  from  school  of  those  suffering  from 
contagious  diseases,  but  for  the  discovery  and  treatment 
of  removable  or  improvable  defects  of  eyes,  ears,  throat, 
teeth,  etc.  Persistent  efforts  to  make  school  conditions 
hygienic  and  so  far  as  possible  to  counteract  and  to  im- 
prove bad  home  conditions  of  pupil  with  respect  to  cleanli- 
ness, nutrition  and  supply  of  fresh  air.  Proper  luncheon 
provided  at  low  cost  to  pupils  who  do  not  go  home  at 
noon.  If  possible,  school  nurse  who  shall  give  "  follow- 
up  "  treatment  at  home. 

6.  Adequate  playground  space  in  connection  with 
school,  with  intelligent  adult  supervision  and  direction  of 
play.  At  least  twenty  minutes  of  outdoor  recess  during  a 
school  day  with  double  session.  Single  session  for  little 
children,  unless  the  school  conditions  are  much  superior 
to  the  home  conditions. 

7.  Adequate  supervision  (by  superintendent,  principals, 
etc.,  and  by  supervisors  of  special  subjects)  not  absorbing 
over  six  to  twelve  per  cent  of  money  appropriated  for 
instruction.  A  certain  standard  of  education  and  of 
professional  training  required  of  all  teachers.  Salaries 
sufficient  to  prevent  constant  changing  of  teachers.  Pro- 
motion and  increase  of  salary  for  length  of  service  or 
further  professional  training  or  both,  plus  efficiency. 

8.  Small  percentage  of  pupils  dropping  out  of  various 
grades;  small  percentage  leaving  at  expiration  of  com- 
pulsory school  period  without  graduation  from  the  ele- 
mentary school;  small  percentage  of  truancy  and  juvenile 
misdemeanor;   fair  percentage   of   elementary   graduates 


30$        CHILD  STUDY  AND  CHILD  TRAINING 

entering  high  school;  large  percentage  of  these  graduated 
from  high  school ;  fair  percentage  of  high  school  graduates 
entering  colleges  or  professional  schools. 

9.  In  elementary  school  not  more  than  thirty-five  to 
forty  pupils  in  one  room  and  under  charge  of  one  teacher; 
in  high  school  not  more  than  twenty-five  to  thirty  pupils 
in  one  class  for  recitation.  Flexible  system  of  promotions, 
not  less  frequent  than  every  half  year.  Small  percentage 
of  pupils  having  to  repeat  entire  work  of  grade  because  of 
failure  in  one  subject;  recognition  of  desirability  of  pro- 
motion by  subjects  in  upper  grades  and  in  high  school. 
Effort  made  to  recognize  different .  rates  of  work  of  dull, 
average,  and  bright  pupils,  and  to  make  provisions  for 
these  differences. 

10.  School  system  including  as  many  of  the  follow- 
ing phases  of  work  and  equipment  as  local  conditions 
permit : 

(a)  Kindergartens. 

(b)  Evening  schools. 

(c)  Vacation  schools  including  both  grade  work  and 
high-school  work. 

(d)  Special  classes  for  sub-normal  children. 

(e)  Special  classes  or  work  for  exceptionally  bright 
children. 

(/)    Manual  training  and  domestic  science  classes, 
(g)   Trade  schools  or  classes. 

(h)  Continuation  industrial  classes  for  minors  at  work, 
(i)    School  and  home  gardens. 
(;')    Physical  training;  gymnasiums  in  schools. 
(k)  School  and  classroom  libraries. 
(/)    School  and  classroom  collections  for  science  and 
nature  study. 

(m)  Simple  apparatus  for  laboratory  work  in  science. 

(n)  School  collection  of  photographs. 

(o)   School  camera  and  stereopticon  equipment. 

(p)  Assembly  halls. 

(q)   Rooms  for  medical  inspection  and  simple  treatment. 

(r)   Teachers'  rest-rooms. 

(s)    Home  and  school  visitors. 


SOCIAL  SITUATION  IN  OUR  HIGH  SCHOOL     309 

11.  School  related  to  community  through 

(a)  Regular  use  of  local  library,  museum,  art-gallery, 
etc. 

(b)  Pupils  taken  by  teachers  to  places  in  neighborhood 
of  natural,  historic,  civic,  industrial  and  aesthetic  interest. 

(c)  Exhibitions  of  work  of  school  open  to  parents  and 
to  citizens  generally. 

(d)  Participation  by  pupils  in  local  celebrations  and 
enterprises  of  various  kinds. 

(e)  Home  and  school  associations  with  regular  meetings 
at  school. 

12.  Community  interest  in  school  shown  by 

(a)  Organized  efforts  for  school  improvement  by  home 
and  school  associations,  women's  clubs,  commercial  and 
industrial  organizations,  public  officials,  local  improvement 
leagues,  etc. 

(b)  Gifts  to  schools  by  organizations  or  by  individual 
citizens. 

(c)  Space  given  to  school  affairs  in  local  press. 


TOPIC   XVIII 
THE  SOCIAL  SITUATION  IN  OUR  HIGH  SCHOOL 

We  all  wish  to  keep  our  public  schools  democratic. 
We  know  that  a  varied  social  life  has  been  growing  up 
in  our  high  schools  of  late.  Much  of  it  is  undoubtedly 
educative;  some  of  it  has  aroused  criticism.  Just  what 
is  the  situation  in  our  own  city,  and  what  may  we  do  to 
improve  it? 

Work  Under  This  Topic 
1.  Talk  with  a  number  of  high-school  boys  and  girls  as 
well  as  with  their  teachers,  to  learn  if  there  are  acknowl- 
edged or  unacknowledged  secret  fraternities  and  sororities 
in  the  school.  If  there  are,  find  out  from  these  sources 
(1)  how  many  they  are,  (2)  how  many  members,  what 
proportion  of  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  school  they  in- 


310        CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

elude,  (3)  how  they  are  supervised  and  directed,  (4)  what 
their  aims  are,  (5)  where,  when  and  how  often  they  meet, 
(6)  what  are  their  expenses,  (7)  what  is  the  feeling  toward 
them  of  the  rest  of  the  school,  (8)  what  is  their  influence 
upon  their  members,  (9)  what  is  the  attitude  toward  them 
of  the  teachers,  (10)  what  suggestions  for  improvement 
may  be  made. 

2.  In  a  similar  way,  learn  what  acknowledged  and 
non-secret  societies  there  are  in  the  school,  and  study  these 
under  the  same  headings. 

3.  In  the  general  student  body,  what  social  facts  ap- 
pear: (1)  as  to  the  manner  of  dress?  (2)  as  to  class-con- 
sciousness, cliquishness  or  snobbishness?  (3)  as  to  race- 
discriminations?  (4)  as  to  favoritism? 


TOPIC  XIX 
THE   STREET   LIFE   OF   BOYS 

An  interesting  and  important  line  of  study  in  a  city 
large  enough  to  have  a  street  life  of  its  own  is  the  relation 
of  boys  to  that  life,  particularly  in  the  evening.  Two 
directions  of  inquiry  may  be  pursued  side  by  side,  the 
study  of  the  situation  and  of  the  remedy.  Always  give 
the  ages  of  the  boys  you  mention. 

1.  The  Situation. 

(a)  How  many  boys,  and  how  many  of  each  age,  as 
revealed  by  the  license  records  or  the  statements  of  the 
newspapers,  are  news  sellers?  What  proportion  of  these 
attend  school?  What  proportion  peddle  on  the  street 
and  what  deliver  from  house  to  house?  How  late  at 
night  is  the  vending  or  delivery  of  papers  permitted? 
How  early  in  the  morning  does  it  begin  ? 

(b)  How  many  boys  work  in  pool  rooms  ?  Under  what 
conditions? 

(c)  How  many  in  saloons?     Under  what  conditions? 

(d)  How  many  as  telegraph  messengers?  Under  what 
conditions  ? 


THE   STREET   LIFE   OF   BOYS  311 

(e)    How  many  bootblacks?     Under  what  conditions? 

(J)  What  other  undesirable  employments  or  amuse- 
ments have  places  for  boys  ?  What  are  the  objectionable 
features  ? 

(g)  On  a  given  night  within  a  period  of  three  hours, 
from  eight  to  eleven,  how  many  boys  were  noted  in  the 
downtown  district,  what  apparently  were  they  there  for 
(give  number  of  boys  in  each  case),  and  what  did  they 
do? 

(ti)  How  many  went  to  the  theatre  ?  How  many  to  mov- 
ing-picture houses?  How  many  to  penny  shows?  How 
many  into  saloons  ?  How  many  used  gambling  devices  ? 
How  many  were  simply  loafing  and  idling  about  ? 

(i)  If  not  otherwise  planned,  the  study  of  theatres  and 
moving-picture  shows,  suggested  elsewhere,  would  be 
appropriate  in  connection  with  this  study. 

2.  The  Way  Out. 

(a)  How  in  general  might  the  desires  which  imperil 
boys  on  our  streets  be  turned  in  wholesome  directions? 

(b)  What  has  our  Y.  M.  C.  A.  to  offer  boys  evenings, 
on  what  terms  and  in  what  frequency? 

(c)  What  other  good  social  institutions  make  their  ap- 
peal to  the  boy  downtown  (such  as  social  settlements, 
clubs  for  street  boys,  evening  playgrounds,  church  clubs, 
night  schools)  ? 

(d)  Have  we  a  curfew  ordinance?  How  well  is  it  en- 
forced? How  effective  is  it?  What  encouraging  experi- 
ence with  it  have  other  cities  had? 

(e)  How  far  is  it  feasible  for  our  homes  to  retain  their 
boys  evenings?  What  are  some  attractive  and  practic- 
able plans  for  doing  this?  Would  a  co-operative  effort 
of  neighboring  homes  be  effective? 

(J)  Would  the  larger  use  of  our  schoolhouses  and 
churches  be  helpful?  In  just  what  ways?  What  can  be 
done  ?     How  ? 

Note.  The  Bovs'  Club  Federation,  1  Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  and 
the  Boys'  Department  of  the  International  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  128  East  28th 
Street,  New  York,  are  interested  in  the  problem  of  the  street,  and  would 
be  glad  to  give  further  suggestions  for  making  investigations  or  practical 
methods. 


312       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

TOPIC   XX 

WHAT   WAS    GOING    ON    IN    OUR   TOWN    LAST 
WEEK   FOR   YOUNG   PEOPLE? 

A  census,  taken  from  the  papers  and  other  announce- 
ments and  from  personal  knowledge,  of  the  public  and 
private  social  occasions  of  a  single  week,  is  bound  to  be 
very  enlightening.  It  may  suggest  serious  conditions, 
pressing  needs,  large  opportunities. 

The  discussion,  to  be  effective,  must  measure  as  well  as 
enumerate  the  recreational  opportunities,  and  should 
suggest  what  personal  and  co-operative  endeavor  might 
do  to  counteract  the  influence  of  commercial  or  degrading 
amusements. 


TOPIC  XXI 
THE   MOTION-PICTURE   SHOWS  IN  OUR  TOWN 

The  motion  picture  has  suddenly  become  the  universal 
source  of  amusement.  Its  possibilities,  for  good  or  evil, 
are  almost  unlimited.  On  the  whole,  its  tendencies  are 
for  good,  but  each  community  decides  for  itself  what  class 
of  pictures  it  wants,  what  the  moral  influences  of  these 
centers  of  entertainment  shall  be,  and  how  they  shall  be, 
or  shall  not  be,  used  for  educational  ends.  Following  are 
several  lines  of  study  which  might  be  pursued  at  one  time. 

1.  The  General  Situation. 

(a)  How  many  show-houses  are  there  in  our  city? 

(b)  What  license  fees  do  they  pay  annually? 

(c)  What  restrictions  are  they  required  to  meet : 

As  to  fire  protection, 

As  to  sanitation, 

As  to  admittance  of  children, 

As  to  censorship  of  films, 

As  to  moral  supervision? 

(d)  To  what  extent  are  these  restrictions  lived  up  to? 

(e)  What  is  the  reputation  of  the  persons  who  own  and 
manage  these  houses? 


MOTION   PICTURES   IN   OUR  TOWN  313 

(/)  What  are  the  usual  prices  of  admission?  What 
are  their  total  estimated  receipts  in  a  year? 

(g)  What  proportion  of  our  people  attend  these  shows  ? 

(h)  How  is  the  attendance  divided:  men,  women  and 
children,  daytime,  evenings  and  Sundays;  children,  after- 
noons, evenings  before  nine,  evenings  after  nine  ? 

2.  Special  Observations. 

It  would  be  even  more  to  the  point  in  getting  the  specific 
influence  of  these  entertainments  if  an  investigator  would 
confine  himself  to  a  single  house  or  to  a  group  of  houses 
that  reaches  a  certain  neighborhood  and  make  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  following  observations: 

(a)  Visit  the  house  more  than  once  and  at  different 
times  of  the  day  and  evening. 

(b)  Note  the  safety  from  fire  and  panic,  and  hygienic 
condition  of  the  building. 

(c)  Note  the  number  and  character  of  the  patrons  (as 
under  "  h  "  above). 

(d)  Note  the  character  of  the  films  and  of  other  enter- 
tainment. 

(e)  Talk  with  the  managers  as  to  where  they  get  their 
reels,  what  opportunity  they  have  to  learn  their  character 
in  advance,  what  regulations  they  have  to  meet  as  to 
censorship  and  inspection,  what  restrictions  they  impose 
as  to  behavior,  what  class  of  patrons  they  have  and  seek, 
whether  they  especially  cater  to  children  and  how,  and 
what  in  general  are  their  ideals.  Discover  if  any  would 
respond  to  an  organized  group  of  patrons  who  desire  the 
best  for  themselves,  their  children  and  the  community. 
Whether  they  would  exhibit  educational  and  feature  films 
Saturdays,  if  supported  by  the  teachers  and  intelligent 
parents  of  the  community. 

(/)  Note  whether  objectionable  social  relations  result 
from  casual  meetings  here. 

(g)  Find  out  from  children,  parents  and  teachers  how 
frequently  each  week  children  of  various  ages  visit  these 
houses. 

(h)  Learn  from  the  same  sources  what  they  think  as  to 
the  influence  upon  (1)  eyesight,  (2)  ability  to  attend  and 


314       CHILD   STUDY  AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

concentrate,  (3)  alertness  in  school,  (4)  general  intelli- 
gence, (5)  nervous  vitality,  (6)  poise  and  contentment, 
(7)  efficiency,  (8)  morality. 

3.  The  theatre  may  be  studied  in  similar  ways.  In 
such  a  study  it  would  also  be  interesting  to  take  into 
account  and  to  discover  the  influence  which  the  motion 
picture  is  having  upon  the  theatre,  not  only  financially, 
but  as  to  the  character  of  plays,  the  attendance  of  children, 
etc. 


TOPIC   XXII 
OBSCENE  LITERATURE 

Definite  information  is  desirable  as  to  whether  obscene 
literature  is  being  circulated  in  the  community.  The 
following  points  are  worthy  of  investigation  in  this  con- 
nection : 

1.  Are  pictures  or  postcards  being  offered  publicly  for 
sale  that  are  not  merely  vulgar,  but  obscene  in  character? 

2.  What  periodicals,  if  any,  printed  in  English  or  any 
other  language,  are  circulated  in  our  town  which  are 
objectionable  on  this  ground? 

3.  Which  local  periodicals,  if  any,  admit  advertisements 
of  quack  doctors  or  of  medicines  for  the  social  diseases? 

4.  Are  pamphlets  or  circulars  of  such  doctors  or  reme- 
dies being  circulated? 

5.  Are  objectionable  billboards  allowed?  What  in- 
stances?    Who  is  responsible? 

6.  In  view  of  these  facts,  what  action,  if  any,  is  needed  ? 


TOPIC   XXIII 
THE   SOCIAL   EVIL 

Such  a  class  as  this  will  not  be  able  or  willing  to  pursue 
the  inquiry  as  to  the  social  evil  thoroughly,  as  has  been 
done  in  notable  surveys  that  have  been  made  in  Chicago 


THE  SALOON   AND   YOUNG  PEOPLE  315 

and  other  cities.  Such  surveys  need  to  be  made  by  ex- 
perts and  must  cover  a  wide  range.  The  following  would 
be  appropriate  questions  to  be  asked,  with  the  purpose  of 
knowing  how  pressing  is  the  local  situation : 

1.  Temptations. 

(a)  The  extent  of  the  circulation  of  obscene  or  suggestive 
literature  and  pictures. 

(b)  The  number  of  objectionable  penny-in-the-slot 
places,  motion-picture  shows,  and  burlesque  houses. 

(c)  The  number  of  objectionable  dance  halls  and  social 
clubs. 

(d)  Other  places  where  boys  and  girls  meet  without  due 
restraint. 

(e)  The  number  of  houses  of  ill  fame. 

2.  The  Situation. 

(a)  The  extent  of  the  social  evil  in  the  high  school. 

(b)  Among  wage-earning  boys  and  girls. 

(c)  Among  newsboys,  messengers,  bell  boys,  etc. 

(d)  The  prevalence  of  social  diseases  among  the  young. 

3.  The  Cure. 

(a)  The  extent  of  sex  instruction  in  our  homes. 

(b)  The  preventive  work  of  social  organizations  that 
work  among  the  young. 

(c)  The  wholesome  influence  of  the  school. 

(d)  The  influence  of  the  church. 

The  wisest  method  of  pursuing  this  study  would  be  by 
personal  interviews  with  judicious  persons  in  the  police 
force,  the  juvenile  courts,  the  local  settlements  and  mis- 
sions, the  Crittenden  Home,  among  the  physicians  and 
teachers,  and  some  older  boys  in  the  schools. 


TOPIC  XXIV 
THE   SALOON  AND   YOUNG   PEOPLE 

The  following  question  sheet,  used  by  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  in  a  Survey  of  the  Boyhood  of 
Detroit,  is  suggested  for  this  investigation: 


316       CHILD  STUDY   AND   CHILD   TRAINING 

Date ;  Day ;  Hour ;    Place ; 

Address 

1.  Description  of  place 

2.  Number  of  boys  present  under  16 ;  under  21 

3.  Number  of  girls  under  18 ;  under  21 

4.  Loafing ;  gambling ;  drinking ;  pool  playing 

5.  Class  of  boys 

6.  Class  of  girls 

7.  Obscene  literature  or  pictures  on  display 

8.  What  attracts  the  boys? 

Entertainments? Music? Singing? 

Dancing  ? Story-telling  ? 

9.  Bartender,  man,  woman  or  child? 

10.  Methods  used  by  saloon  for  new  recruits 

11.  Distance  from  school  or  church 

12.  Impression 

13.  Remarks 

For  the  study  of  a  single  saloon  this  sheet  should  be 
used  by  several  persons  at  different  times  of  the  day  and 
night.  It  should  be  supplemented  by  the  testimony  of 
neighbors,  of  the  police,  of  the  police  court  magistrate, 
and  of  habitues.  Particular  subjects  for  inquiry  would 
be :  Adherence  to  legal  hours  for  opening,  sale  of  liquor  to 
minors,  use  of  the  saloon  as  a  social  center  by  men,  women 
and  children,  general  influence  on  morals. 

For  an  adequate  study  of  the  situation  in  a  district  such 
a  method  should  be  applied  to  all  the  saloons  in  the  dis- 
trict. 


TOPIC   XXV 
OUR   PLAYGROUNDS 

The  Playground  and  Recreation  Association  of  America, 
1  Madison  Avenue,  New  York,  is  glad  to  direct  those 
who  wish  to  make  a  comprehensive  study  of  the  local 
recreational  situation  and  to  give  counsel  for  its  improve- 


THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY  AND  THE  CHILDREN   317 

ment.     The  following  inquiries  would  set  before  the  class 
the  main  features  which  it  needs  to  know. 

1.  How  many  public,  supervised  playgrounds  has  our 
city,  including  those  in  school  grounds,  public  parks,  and 
in  connection  with  playground  associations,  settlements, 
churches,  etc.  ?  How  are  these  located  in  relation  to  the 
social  needs  of  the  young  people?  (A  map  with  stars  for 
sites  would  be  useful  here.)  How  many  of  them  are  open 
and  supervised  evenings  ?  How  many  make  suitable 
provision  for  little  children  ?     For  older  boys  ? 

2.  Are  children,  in  every  sense,  safe  there?  Is  the 
playground  apparatus  adequate?  How  are  the  children 
conducted  to  and  from  the  grounds  ?  May  mothers  assist 
as  voluntary  leaders  of  the  children?  To  what  extent 
are  these  playgrounds  successful  in  displacing  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  streets? 

3.  How  many  places  of  informal  and  unsupervised  play 
do  we  have?  Where  are  they?  What  are  their  influ- 
ences?    What  should  be  done  about  them? 


TOPIC   XXVI 
THE   PUBLIC    LIBRARY  AND   THE   CHILDREN 

A  friendly  study  of  the  local  public  library  should  have 
as  its  end  the  discovery  of  the  needs  of  the  library  and  its 
possibilities,  and  the  needs  of  the  children  who  are  within 
its  reach.  Some  of  the  following  points  may  be  brought 
out  by  co-operation  with  the  librarian. 

1.  A  library  is  usually  best  administered  by  an  inde- 
pendent board,  and  not  as  a  part  of  the  city  school  system. 
This  board  should  be  composed  of  persons  who  are  not 
only  unselfish,  but  who  have  literary  taste  and  who  will 
give  the  library  much  thought  and  care.  What  is  the 
case  in  our  city? 

2.  A  library  should  have  a  large,  sunny  and  airy  special 
room  for  children.     Is  ours  adequate? 


318       CHILD  STUDY  AND   CHILD  TRAINING 

3.  The  library  staff  should  include  enough  persons  to 
take  good  care  of  the  children's  room,  who  have  been 
thoroughly  trained  and  who  are  sufficiently  paid.  Is  all 
this  true  with  us? 

4.  There  should  be  a  large,  modern,  well-selected  and 
attractively  arranged  collection  of  children's  books.  This, 
of  course,  is  the  principal  thing.  The  one  who  reports 
upon  this  should  do  so  in  considerable  detail,  making  need- 
ful comments. 

i  5.  The  children's  library  should  have  sufficient  funds  to 
permit  of  keeping  its  stock  of  books  clean  and  of  replenish- 
ing and  increasing  the  stock  as  needed.  What  is  the 
condition  in  our  library  in  this  respect  ? 

6.  What  plans  are  being  made  effective,  if  any,  to 
bring  the  library  closer  to  all  the  children, 

(a)  By  attractive  bulletins  and  other  publicity  ? 

(b)  By  story-hours  and  informal  talks? 

(c)  By  branches  or  depositories  in  schools,  shops, 
stores  ? 

(d)  By  other  relationships  with  the  schools  ? 

7.  What  can  our  class  best  do  to  advance  the  interests 
of  the  library? 


TOPIC   XXVII 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    CIVIC    BEAUTY    UPON 
YOUNG   PEOPLE 

1.  What  influence  does  the  general  appearance  of  our 
t-  >wn  have  upon  its  young  people  ? 

Walk  through  as  many  streets  as  possible,  imagining 
yourself  a  young  person  considering  whether  or  not  to 
come  here  and  live,  and  try  to  see  everything  freshly. 
Note  especially:  the  surroundings  of  the  railroad  station, 
the  noticeableness  of  smoke,  the  pavements,  billboards, 
alleys,  care  of  private  grounds,  freedom  or  littering  of 
sidewalks,  presence  or  absence  of  rubbish  and  of  recep- 
tacles for  rubbish,  number,  convenience  and  appearance 


INFLUENCE   OF   CIVIC  BEAUTY  319 

of  parks  and  open  spaces,  number  and  character  of  saloons, 
comparative  neatness  and  care  of  churches,  apparent 
presence  or  absence  of  lounging  places  and  haunts  of  vice, 
number  and  character  of  loungers,  general  appearance  of 
thrift,  pride,  prosperity,  public  spirit,  or  the  opposite. 

2.  What  is  being  done  in  any  of  our  schools  to  secure 
the  active  co-operation  of  the  school  children  in  any  action 
for  civic  beautification : 

On  the  school  grounds? 

On  the  streets  (such  as  picking  up  papers,  not  scattering 
papers)  ? 

In  the  home  yards  (use  of  school  packets  of  seeds)  ? 

On  special  days  (such  as  Arbor  Day,  Clean-up  Week)  ? 

By  special  organizations  (such  as  Scouts,  Junior  Street 
Cleaning  Leagues)  ? 

3.  What  are  some  practical  projects -for  enlisting  the 
children  in  city  improvement  ?  Secure  information  about 
what  the  Boy  Scouts  have  done,  elsewhere;  about  junior 
civic  leagues  (from  the  United  Society  of  Christian  En- 
deavor, Boston) ;  about  Clean-up  Weeks,  about  school 
gardening  and  home  gardening  projects  (from  the  National 
School  Garden  Association,  New  York). 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


*U0  9     , a. 

AUG  12^950 


**Q 


i  S4j 


QL 


fflffl 


3 1 1984 


Form  L9 — 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 


AA    000  427  978    2 


3  1J58  00929  7531 


